Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 2 (of 2)
THE KNIGHT OF GWYNNE
By Charles James Lever
With Illustrations By Phiz.
In Two Volumes
Vol. II.
Boston: Little, Brown, And Company
1899.
CONTENTS
THE KNIGHT OF GWYNNE
CHAPTER I. SOME CHARACTERS NEW TO THE KNIGHT AND THE READER
CHAPTER II. A TALE OF MR. DEMPSEY’S GRANDFATHER
CHAPTER III. SOME VISITORS AT GWYNNE ABBEY
CHAPTER IV. A SCENE AT THE ASSIZES
CHAPTER V. MR. HEFFERNAN’S COUNSELS
CHAPTER VI. AN UNLOOKED-FOR PROMOTION
CHAPTER VII. A PARTING INTERVIEW
CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRE
CHAPTER IX. BOARDING-HOUSE CRITICISM
CHAPTER X. DALY’S FAREWELL
CHAPTER XI. THE DUKE OF YORK’S LEVEE
CHAPTER XII. THE TWO SIDES OF A MEDAL
CHAPTER XIII. AN UNCEREMONIOUS VISIT
CHAPTER XIV. A TÊTE-À-TÊTE AND A LETTER
CHAPTER XV. A DINNER AT COM HEFFERNAN’S
CHAPTER XVI. PAUL DEMPSEY’S WALK
CHAPTER XVII. MR. ANTHONY NICKIE, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW
CHAPTER XVIII. A CONVIVIAL EVENING
CHAPTER XIX. MR. DEMPSEY BEHIND THE SCENE
CHAPTER XX. MR. HEFFERNAN OUT-MANOEUVRED
CHAPTER XXI. A BIT OF B Y-P L A Y
CHAPTER XXII. A GLANCE AT MRS. FUMBALLY’S
CHAPTER XXIII. THE COAST IN WINTER
CHAPTER XXIV. THE DOCTOR’S LAST DEVICE
CHAPTER XXV. A DARK CONSPIRACY
CHAPTER XXVI. THE LANDING AT ABOUKIR
CHAPTER XXVII. THE FRENCH RETREAT
CHAPTER XXVIII. TIDINGS OF THE WOUNDED
CHAPTER XXIX. THE DAWN OF CONVALESCENCE
CHAPTER XXX. A BOUDOIR
CHAPTER XXXI. A LESSON FOR EAVES-DROPPING
CHAPTER XXXII. A LESSON IN POLITICS
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE CHANCES OF TRAVEL
CHAPTER XXXIV. HOME
CHAPTER XXXV. AN AWKWARD DINNER-PARTY
CHAPTER XXXVI. AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSAL
CHAPTER XXXVII. THE LAST STRUGGLE
CHAPTER XXXVIII. CONCLUSION
THE KNIGHT OF GWYNNE
CHAPTER I. SOME CHARACTERS NEW TO THE KNIGHT AND THE READER
Soon after breakfast the following morning the Knight set out to pay his promised visit to Miss Daly, who had taken up her abode at a little village on the coast, about three miles distant. Had Darcy known that her removal thither had been in consequence of his own arrival at “The Corvy,” the fact would have greatly added to an embarrassment sufficiently great on other grounds. Of this, however, he was not aware; her brother Bagenal accounting for her not inhabiting “The Corvy” as being lonely and desolate, whereas the village of Ballintray was, after its fashion, a little watering-place much frequented in the season by visitors from Coleraine, and other towns still more inland.
Thither now the Knight bent his steps by a little footpath across the fields which, from time to time, approached the seaside, and wound again through the gently undulating surface of that ever-changing tract.
Not a human habitation was in sight; not a living thing was seen to move over that wide expanse; it was solitude the very deepest, and well suited the habit of his mind who now wandered there alone. Deeply lost in thought, he moved onward, his arms folded on his breast, and his eyes downcast; he neither bestowed a glance upon the gloomy desolation of the land prospect, nor one look of admiring wonder at the giant cliffs, which, straight as a wall, formed the barriers against the ocean.
“What a strange turn of fortune!” said he, at length, as relieving his overburdened brain by speech. “I remember well the last day I ever saw her; it was just before my departure for England for my marriage. I remember well driving over to Castle Daly to say good-bye! Perhaps, too, I had some lurking vanity in exhibiting that splendid team of four grays, with two outriders. How perfect it all was! and a proud fellow I was that day! Maria was looking very handsome; she was dressed for riding, but ordered the horses back as I drove up. What spirits she had!—with what zest she seized upon the enjoyments her youth, her beauty, and her fortune gave her!—how ardently she indulged every costly caprice and every whim, as if revelling in the pleasure of extravagance even for its own sake! Fearless in everything, she did indeed seem like a native princess, surrounded by all that barbaric splendor of her father’s house, the troops of servants, the equipages without number, the guests that came and went unceasingly, all rendering homage to her beauty. ‘T was a gorgeous dream of life, and well she understood how to realize all its enchantment. We scarcely parted good friends on that same last day,” said he, after a pause; “her manner was almost mordant. I can recall the cutting sarcasms she dealt around her,—strange exuberance of high spirits carried away to the wildest flights of fancy; and after all, when, having dropped my glove, I returned to the luncheon-room to seek it, I saw her in a window, bathed in tears; she did not perceive me, and we never met after. Poor girl! were those outpourings of sorrow the compensation nature exacted for the exercise of such brilliant powers of wit and imagination? or had she really, as some believed, a secret attachment somewhere? Who knows? And now we are to meet again, after years of absence,—so fallen too! If it were not for these gray hairs and this wrinkled brow, I could believe it all a dream;—and what is it but a dream, if we are not fashioned to act differently because of our calamities? Events are but shadows if they move us not.”
From thoughts like these he passed on to others,—as to how he should be received, and what changes time might have wrought in her.
“She was so lovely, and might have been so much more so, had she but curbed that ever-rising spirit of mockery that made the sparkling lustre of her eyes seem like the scathing flash of lightning rather than the soft beam of tranquil beauty. How we quarrelled and made up again! what everlasting treaties ratified and broken! and now to look back on this with a heart and a spirit weary, how sad it seems! Poor Maria! her destiny has been less happy than mine. She is alone in the world; I have affectionate hearts around me to make a home beneath the humble roof of a cabin.”
The Knight was aroused from his musings by suddenly finding himself on the brow of a hill, from which the gorge descended abruptly into a little cove, around which the village of Ballintray was built. A row of whitewashed cottages, in winter inhabited by the fishermen and their families, became in the summer season the residence of the visitors, many of whom deserted spacious and well-furnished mansions to pass their days in the squalid discomfort of a cabin. If beauty of situation and picturesque charms of scenery could ever atone for so many inconveniences incurred, this little village might certainly have done so. Landlocked by two jutting promontories, the bay was sheltered both east and westward, while the rising ground behind defended it from the sweeping storms which the south brings in its seasons of rain; in front the distant island of Isla could be seen, and the Scottish coast was always discernible in the clear atmosphere of the evening.
While Darcy stood admiring the well-chosen spot, his eye rested upon a semicircular panel of wood, which, covering over a short and gravelled avenue, displayed in very striking capitals the words “Fumbally’s Boarding-House.” The edifice itself, more pretentious in extent and character than the cabins around, was ornamented with green jalousies to the windows, and a dazzling brass knocker surmounting a plate of the same metal, whereupon the name “Mrs. Jones Fumbally” was legible, even from the road. Some efforts at planting had been made in the two square plots of yellowish grass in front, but they had been lamentable failures; and, as if to show that the demerit was of the soil and not of the proprietors, the dead shrubs were suffered to stand where they had been stuck down, while, in default of leaves or buds, they put forth a plentiful covering of stockings, nightcaps, and other wearables, which flaunted as gayly in the breeze as the owners were doing on the beach.
Across the high-road and on the beach, which was scarcely more than fifty yards distant, stood a large wooden edifice on wheels, whose make suggested some secret of its original destination, had not that fact been otherwise revealed, since, from beneath the significant name of “Fumbally,” an acute decipherer might read the still unerased inscription of “A Panther with only two spots from the head to the tail,” an unhappy collocation which fixed upon the estimable lady the epithet of the animal in question.
Various garden-seats and rustic benches were scattered about, some of which were occupied by lounging figures of gentlemen, in costumes ingeniously a cross between the sporting world and the naval service; while the ladies displayed a no less elegant neglige, half sea-nymph, half shepherdess.
So much for the prospect landward, while towards the waves themselves there was a party of bathers, whose flowing hair and lengthened drapery indicated their sex. These maintained through all their sprightly gambols an animated conversation with a party of gentlemen on the rocks, who seemed, by the telescopes and spy-glasses which lay around them, to be equally prepared for the inspection of near and distant objects, and alternately turned from the criticism of a fair naiad beneath to a Scotch collier working “north about” in the distance.
Darcy could not help feeling that if the cockneyism of a boarding-house and the blinds and the brass knocker were sadly repugnant to the sense of admiration the scene itself would excite, there was an ample compensation in the primitive simplicity of the worthy inhabitants, who seemed to revel in all the unsuspecting freedom of our first parents themselves; for while some stood on little promontories of the rocks in most Canova-like drapery, little frescos of naked children flitted around and about, without concern to themselves or astonishment to the beholders.
Never was the good Knight more convinced of his own prudence in paying his first visit alone, and he stood for some time in patient admiration of the scene, until his eye rested on a figure who, seated at some distance off on a little eminence of the rocky coast, was as coolly surveying Darcy through his telescope. The mutual inspection continued for several minutes, when the stranger, deliberately shutting up his glass, advanced towards the Knight.
The gentleman was short, but stoutly knit, with a walk and a carriage of his head that, to Darcy’s observant eye, bespoke an innate sense of self-importance; his dress was a greatcoat, cut jockey fashion, and ornamented with very large buttons, displaying heads of stags, foxes, and badgers, and other emblems of the chase, short Russia duck trousers, a wide-leaved straw hat, and a very loose cravat, knotted sailor-fashion on his breast. As he approached the Knight, he came to a full stop about half a dozen paces in front, and putting his hand to his hat, held it straight above his head, pretty much in the way stage imitators of Napoleon were wont to perform the salutation.
“A stranger, sir, I presume?” said he, with an insinuating smile and an air of dignity at the same moment. Darcy bowed a courteous assent, and the other went on: “Sweet scene, sir,—lovely nature,—animated and grand.”
“Most impressive, I confess,” said Darcy, with difficulty repressing a smile.
“Never here before, I take it?”
“Never, sir.”
“Came from Coleraine, possibly? Walked all the way, eh?”
“I came on foot, as you have divined,” said Darcy, dryly.
“Not going to make any stay, probably; a mere glance, and go on again. Is n’t that so?”
“I believe you are quite correct; but may I, in return for your considerate inquiries, ask one question on my own part? You are, perhaps, sufficiently acquainted with the locality to inform me if a Miss Daly resides in this village, and where.”
“Miss Daly, sir, did inhabit that cottage yonder, where you see the oars on the thatch, but it has been let to the Moors of Ballymena; they pay two-ten a week for the three rooms and the use of the kitchen; smart that, ain’t it?”
“And Miss Daly resides at present—”
“She ‘s one of us,” said the little man, with a significant jerk of his thumb to the blue board with the gilt letters; “not much of that, after all; but she lives under the sway of ‘Mother Fum,’ though, from one caprice or another, she don’t mix with the other boarders. Do you know her yourself?”
“I had that honor some years ago.”
“Much altered, I take it, since that; down in the world too! She was an heiress in those days, I ‘ve heard, and a beauty. Has some of the good looks still, but lost all the shiners.”
“Am I likely to find her at home at this hour?” said Darcy, moving away, and anxious for an opportunity to escape his communicative friend.
“No, not now; never shows in the morning. Just comes down to dinner, and disappears again. Never takes a hand at whist—penny points tell up, you know—seem a trifle at first, but hang me if they don’t make a figure in the budget afterwards. There, do you see that fat lady with the black bathing-cap?—no, I mean the one with the blue baize patched on the shoulder, the Widow Mackie,—she makes a nice thing of it,—won twelve and fourpence since the first of the month. Pretty creature that yonder, with one stocking on,—Miss Boyle, of Carrick-maclash.”
“I must own,” said Darcy, dryly, “that, not having the privilege of knowing these ladies, I do not conceive myself at liberty to regard them with due attention.”
“Oh! they never mind that here; no secrets among us.”
“Very primitive, and doubtless very delightful; but I have trespassed too long on your politeness. Permit me to wish you a very good morning.”
“Not at all; having nothing in the world to do. Paul Dempsey—that’s my name—was always an idle man; Paul Dempsey, sir, nephew of old Paul Dempsey, of Dempsey Grove, in the county of Kilkenny; a snug place, that I wish the proprietor felt he had enjoyed sufficiently long. And your name, if I might make bold, is—”
“I call myself Gwynne,” said Darcy, after a slight hesitation.
“Gwynne—Gwynne—there was a Gwynne, a tailor, in Ballyragget; a connection, probably?”
“I ‘m not aware of any relationship,” said Darcy, smiling.
“I ‘m glad of it; I owe your brother or your cousin there—that is, if he was either—a sum of seven-and-nine for these ducks. There are Gwynnes in Ross besides, and Quins; are you sure it is not Quin? Very common name Quin.”
“I believe we spell our name as I have pronounced it.” “Well, if you come to spend a little time here, I ‘ll give you a hint or two. Don’t join Leonard—that blue-nosed fellow, yonder, in whiskey. He ‘ll be asking you, but don’t—at it all day.” Here Mr. Dempsey pantomimed the action of tossing off a dram. “No whist with the widow; if you were younger, I ‘d say no small plays with Bess Boyle,—has a brother in the Antrim militia, a very quarrelsome fellow.”
“I thank you sincerely for your kind counsel, although not destined to profit by it. I have one favor to ask: could you procure me the means to enclose my card for Miss Daly, as I must relinquish the hope of seeing her on this occasion?”
“No, no,—stop and dine. Capital cod and oysters,—always good. The mutton rayther scraggy, but with a good will and good teeth manageable enough; and excellent malt-”
“I thank you for your hospitable proposal, but cannot accept it.”
“Well, I ‘ll take care of your card; you ‘ll probably come over again soon. You ‘re at M’Grotty’s, ain’t you?”
“Not at present; and as to the card, with your permission I’ll enclose it.” This Darcy was obliged to insist upon; as, if he left his name as Gwynne, Miss Daly might have failed to recognize him, while he desired to avoid being known as Mr. Darcy.
“Well, come in here; I ‘ll find you the requisites. But I wish you ‘d stop and see the ‘Panther.’”
Had the Knight overheard this latter portion of Mr.
Dempsey’s invitation, he might have been somewhat surprised; but it chanced that the words were lost, and, preceded by honest Paul, he entered the little garden in front of the house.
When Darcy had enclosed his card and committed it to the hands of Mr. Dempsey, that gentleman was far too deeply impressed with the importance of his mission to delay a moment in executing it, and then the Knight was at last left at liberty to retrace his steps unmolested towards home. If he had smiled at the persevering curiosity and eccentric communicativeness of Mr. Dempsey, Darcy sorrowed deeply over the fallen fortunes which condemned one he had known so courted and so flattered once, to companionship like this. The words of the classic satirist came full upon his memory, and never did a sentiment meet more ready acceptance than the bitter, heart-wrung confession, “Unhappy poverty! you have no heavier misery in your train than that you make men seem ridiculous.” A hundred times he wished he had never made the excursion; he would have given anything to be able to think of her as she had been, without the detracting influence of these vulgar associations. “And yet,” said he, half aloud, “a year or so more, if I am still living, I shall probably have forgotten my former position, and shall have conformed myself to the new and narrow limits of my lot, doubtless as she does.”
The quick tramp of feet on the heather behind him roused him, and, in turning, he saw a person coming towards and evidently endeavouring to overtake him. As he came nearer, the Knight perceived it was the gentleman already alluded to by Dempsey as one disposed to certain little traits of conviviality,—a fact which a nose of a deep copper color, and two bloodshot, bleary eyes, corroborated. His dress was a blue frock with a standing collar, military fashion, and dark trousers; and, although bearing palpable marks of long wear, were still neat and clean-looking. His age, as well as appearances might be trusted, was probably between fifty and sixty.
“Mr. Gwynne, I believe, sir,” said the stranger, touching his cap as he spoke. “Miss Daly begged of me to say that she has just received your card, and will be happy to see you.”
Darcy stared at the speaker fixedly, and appeared, while unmindful of his words, to be occupied with some deep emotion within him. The other, who had delivered his message in a tone of easy unconcern, now fixed his eyes on the Knight, and they continued for some seconds to regard each other. Gradually, however, the stranger’s face changed; a sickly pallor crept over the features stained by long intemperance, his lip trembled, and two heavy tears gushed out and rolled down his seared cheeks.
“My G—d! can it be? It surely is not!” said Darcy, with almost tremulous earnestness.
“Yes, Colonel, it is the man you once remembered in your regiment as Jack Leonard; the same who led a forlorn hope at Quebec,—the man broke with disgrace and dismissed the service for cowardice at Trois Rivières.”
“Poor fellow!” said Darcy, taking his hand; “I heard you were dead.”
“No, sir, it’s very hard to kill a man by mere shame: though if suffering could do it, I might have died.”
“I have often doubted about that sentence, Leonard,” said Darcy, eagerly. “I wrote to the commander-in-chief to have inquiry made, suspecting that nothing short of some affection of the mind or some serious derangement of health could make a brave man behave badly.”
“You were right, sir; I was a drunkard, not a coward. I was unworthy of the service; I merited my disgrace, but not on the grounds for which I met it.”
“Good Heaven! then I was right,” said Darcy, in a burst of passionate grief; “my letter to the War Office was unanswered. I wrote again, and received for reply that an example was necessary, and Lieutenant Leonard’s conduct pointed him out as the most suitable case for heavy punishment.”
“It was but just, Colonel; I was a poltroon when I took more than half a bottle of wine. If I were not sober now, I could not have the courage to face you here where I stand.”
“Poor Jack!” said Darcy, wringing his hand cordially; “and what have you done since?”
Leonard threw his eyes down upon his threadbare garments, his patched boots, and the white-worn seams of his old frock, but not a word escaped his lips. They walked on for some time side by side without speaking, when Leonard said,—
“They know nothing of me here, Colonel. I need not ask you to be—cautious.” There was a hesitation before he uttered the last word.
“I do not desire to be recognized, either,” said Darcy, “and prefer being called Mr. Gwynne to the name of my family; and here, if I mistake not, comes a gentleman most eager to learn anything of anybody.”
Mr. Dempsey came up at this moment with a lady leaning on each of his arms.
“Glad to see you again, sir; hope you ‘ve thought better of your plans, and are going to try Mother Fum’s fare. Mrs. M’Quirk, Mr. Gwynne—Mr. Gwynne, Miss Drew. Leonard will do the honors till we come back.” So saying, and with a princely wave of his straw hat, Mr. Dempsey resumed his walk with the step of a conqueror.
“That fellow must be a confounded annoyance to you,” said Darcy, as he looked after him.
“Not now, sir,” said the other, submissively; “I ‘m used to him; besides, since Miss Daly’s arrival he is far quieter than he used to be, he seems afraid of her. But I ‘ll leave you now, Colonel.” He touched his cap respectfully, and was about to move away, when Darcy, pitying the confusion which overwhelmed him, caught his hand cordially, and said,—
“Well, Jack, for the moment, good-bye; but come over and see me. I live at the little cottage called ‘The Corvy.’”
“Good Heaven, sir! and it is true what I read in the newspaper about your misfortunes?”
“I conclude it is, Jack, though I have not read it; they could scarcely have exaggerated.”
“And you bear it like this!” said the other, with a stare of amazement; then added, in a broken voice, “Though, to be sure, there ‘s a wide difference between loss of fortune and ruined character.”
“Come, Jack, I see you are not so good a philosopher as I thought you. Come and dine with me to-morrow at five.”
“Dine with you, Colonel!” said Leonard, blushing deeply.
“And why not, man? I see you have not forgotten the injustice I once did you, and I am happier this day to know it was I was in the wrong than that a British officer was a coward.”
“Oh, Colonel Darcy, I did not think this poor broken heart could ever throb again with gratitude, but you have made it do so; you have kindled the flame of pride where the ashes were almost cold.” And with a burning blush upon his face he turned away. Darcy looked after him for a second, and then entered the house.
Darcy had barely time to throw one glance around the scanty furniture of the modest parlor into which he was ushered, when Miss Daly entered. She stopped suddenly short, and for a few seconds each regarded the other without speaking. Time had, indeed, worked many changes in the appearance of each for which they were unprepared; but no less were they unprepared for the emotions this sudden meeting was to call up.
Miss Daly was plainly but handsomely dressed, and wore her silvery hair beneath a cap in two long bands on either cheek, with something of an imitation of a mode she followed in youth; the tones of her voice, too, were wonderfully little changed, and fell upon Darcy’s ears with a strange, melancholy meaning.
“We little thought, Knight,” said she, “when we parted last, that our next meeting would have been as this, so many years and many sorrows have passed over us since that day!”
“And a large measure of happiness, too, Maria,” said Darcy, as, taking her hand, he led her to a seat; “let us never forget, amid all our troubles, how many blessings we have enjoyed.”
Whether it was the words themselves that agitated her, or something in his manner of uttering them, Miss Daly blushed deeply and was silent. Darcy was not slow to see her confusion, and suddenly remembering how inapplicable his remark was to her fortunes, though not to his own, added hastily, “I, at least, would be very ungrateful if I could not look back with thankfulness to a long life of prosperity and happiness; and if I bear my present reverses with less repining, it is, I hope and trust, from the sincerity of this feeling.”
“You have enjoyed the sunny path in life,” said Miss Daly, in a low, faint voice, “and it is, perhaps, as you say, reason for enduring altered fortunes better.” She paused, and then, with a more hurried voice, added: “One does not bear calamity better from habit; that is all a mistake. When the temper is soured by disappointment, the spirit of endurance loses its firmest ally. Your misfortunes will, however, be short-lived, I hope; my brother writes me he has great confidence in some legal opinions, and certain steps he has already taken in chancery.”
“The warm-hearted and the generous are always sanguine,” said Darcy, with a sad smile; “Bagenal would not be your brother if he could see a friend in difficulty without venturing on everything to rescue him. What an old friendship ours has been! class fellows at school, companions in youth, we have run our race together, to end with fortune how similar! I was thinking, Maria, as I came along, of Castle Daly, and remembering how I passed my holidays with you there. Is your memory as good as mine?”
“I scarcely like to think of Castle Daly,” said she, almost pettishly, “it reminds me so much of that wasteful, reckless life which laid the foundation of our ruin. Tell me how Lady Eleanor Darcy bears up, and your daughter, of whom I have heard so much, and desire so ardently to see; is she more English or Irish?”
“A thorough Darcy,” said the Knight, smiling, “but yet with traits of soft submission and patient trust our family has been but rarely gifted with; her virtues are all the mother’s, every blemish of her character has come from the other side.”
“Is she rash and headstrong? for those are Darcy failings.”
“Not more daring or courageous than I love her to be,” said Darcy, proudly, “not a whit more impetuous in sustaining the right or denouncing the wrong than I glory to see her; but too ardent, perhaps, too easily carried away by first impressions, than is either fashionable or frequent in the colder world.”
“It is a dangerous temper,” said Miss Daly, thoughtfully.
“You are right, Maria; such people are for the most part like the gamester who has but one throw for his fortune, if he loses which, all is lost with it.”
“Too true, too true!” said she, in an accent whose melancholy sadness seemed to come from the heart. “You must guard her carefully from any rash attachment; a character like hers is strong to endure, but not less certain to sink under calamity.”
“I know it, I feel it,” said Darcy; “but my dear child is still too young to have mixed in that world which is already closed against her; her affections could never have strayed beyond the limits of our little home circle; she has kept all her love for those who need it most.”
“And Lady Eleanor?” said Miss Daly, as if suddenly desirous to change the theme: “Bagenal tells me her health has been but indifferent; how does she bear our less genial climate here?”
“She ‘s better than for many years past; I could even say she ‘s happier. Strange it is, Maria, but the course of prosperity, like the calms in the ocean, too frequently steep the faculties in an apathy that becomes weariness; but when the clouds are drifted along faster, and the waves rustle at the prow, the energies of life are again excited, and the very occasion of danger begets the courage to confront it. We cannot be happy when devoid of self-esteem, and there is but little opportunity to indulge this honest pride when the world goes fairly with us, without any effort of our own; reverses of fortune—”
“Oh, reverses of fortune!” interrupted Miss Daly, rapidly, “people think much more about them than they merit; it is the world itself makes them so difficult to bear; one can think and act as freely beneath the thatch of a cabin as the gilded roof of a palace. It is the mock sympathy, the affected condolence for your fallen estate, that tortures you; the never-ending recurrence to what you once were, contrasted with what you are; the cruelty of that friendship that is never content save when reminding you of a station lost forever, and seeking to unfit you for your humble path in the valley because your step was once proudly on the mountain-top.”
“I will not concede all this,” said the Knight, mildly; “my fall has been too recent not to remind me of many kindnesses.”
“I hate pity,” said Miss Daly; “it is like a recommendation to mercy after the sentence of an unjust judge. Now tell me of Lionel.”
“A fine, high-spirited soldier, as little affected by his loss as though it touched him not; and yet, poor boy! to all appearance a bright career was about to open before him,—well received by the world, honored by the personal notice of his Prince.”
“Ha! now I think of it, why did you not vote against the Minister?”
“It was on that evening,” said Darcy, sorrowfully,—“on that very evening—I heard of Gleeson’s flight.”
“Well,”—then suddenly correcting herself, and restraining the question that almost trembled on her lip, she added, “And you were, doubtless, too much shocked to appear in the House?”
“I was ill,” said Darcy, faintly; “indeed, I believe I can say with truth, my own ruin preyed less upon my mind than the perfidy of one so long confided in.”
“And they made this accidental illness the ground of a great attack against your character, and sought to discover in your absence the secret of your corruption. How basely minded men must be, when they will invent not only actions, but motives to calumniate!” She paused, and then muttered to herself, “I wish you had voted against that Bill.”
“It would have done little good,” said the Knight, answering her soliloquy; “my vote could neither retard nor prevent the measure, and as for myself, personally, I am proud enough to think I have given sufficient guarantees by a long life of independent action, not to need this crowning test of honesty. Now to matters nearer to us both: when will you come and visit my wife and daughter? or shall I bring them here to you?”
“No, no, not here. I am not ashamed of this place for myself, though I should be so if they were once to see it.”
“But you feel less lonely,” said Darcy, in a gentle tone, as if anticipating the reason of her choice of residence.
“Less lonely!” replied she, with a haughty laugh; “what companionship or society have I with people like these? It is not that,—it is my poverty compels me to live here. Of them and of their habits I know nothing; from me and from mine they take good care to keep aloof. No, with your leave I will visit Lady Eleanor at your cottage,—that is, if she has no objection to receive me.”
“She will be but too happy,” said Darcy, “to know and value one of her husband’s oldest and warmest friends.”
“You must not expect me soon, however,” said she, hastily; “I have grown capricious in everything, and never can answer for performing a pledge at any stated time, and therefore never make one.”
Abrupt and sudden as had been the changes of her voice and manner through this interview, there was a tone of unusual harshness in the way this speech was uttered; and as Darcy rose to take his leave, a feeling of sadness came over him to think that this frame of mind must have been the slow result of years of heart-consuming sorrow.
“Whenever you come, Maria,” said he, as he took her hand in his, “you will be most welcome to us.”
“Have you heard any tidings of Forester?” said Miss Daly, as if suddenly recalling a subject she wished to speak on.
“Forester of the Guards? Lionel’s friend, do you mean?”
“Yes; you know that he has left the army, thrown up his commission, and gone no one knows where?”
“I did not know of that before. I am sincerely sorry for it. Is the cause surmised?”
Miss Daly made no answer, but stood with her eyes bent on the ground, and apparently in deep thought; then looking up suddenly, she said, with more composure than ordinary, “Make my compliments to Lady Eleanor, and say that at the first favorable moment I will pay my personal respects to her—kiss Helen for me—good-bye.” And, without waiting for Darcy to take his leave, she walked hastily by, and closed the door after her.
“This wayward manner,” said Darcy, sorrowfully, to himself, “has a deeper root than mere capriciousness; the heart has suffered so long that the mind begins to partake of the decay.” And with this sad reflection he left the village, and turned his solitary steps towards home.
If Darcy was grieved to find Miss Daly surrounded by such unsuitable companionship, he was more thau recompensed at finding that her taste rejected nearer intimacy with Mrs. Fumbally’s household. More than once the fear crossed his mind that, with diminished circumstances, she might have lapsed into habits so different from her former life, and he could better look upon her struggling as she did against her adverse fortune than assimilating herself to those as much below her in sentiment as in station. He was happy to have seen his old friend once more, he was glad to refresh his memory of long-forgotten scenes by the sight of her who had been his playfellow and his companion, but he was not free of a certain dread that Miss Daly would scarcely be acceptable to his wife, while her wayward, uncertain temper would form no safe companionship for his daughter. As he pondered on these things, he began to feel how altered circumstances beget suspicion, and how he, who had never known the feeling of distrust, now found himself hesitating and doubting, where formerly he had acted without fear or reserve.
“Yes,” said he, aloud, “when wealth and station were mine, the consciousness of power gave energy to my thoughts, but now I am to learn how narrow means can fetter a man’s courage.”
“Some truth in that,” said a voice behind him; “would cut a very different figure myself if old Bob Dempsey, of Dempsey Grove, were to betake himself to a better world.”
Darcy’s cheek reddened between shame and anger to find himself overheard by his obtrusive companion, and, with a cold salute, he passed on. Mr. Dempsey, however, was not a man to be so easily got rid of; he possessed that happy temper that renders its owner insensible to shame and unconscious of rebuke; besides that, he was always “going your way,” quite content to submit to any amount of rebuff rather than be alone. If you talked, it was well; if you listened, it was better; but if you affected open indifference to him, and neither exchanged a word nor vouchsafed the slightest attention, even that was supportable, for he could give the conversation a character of monologue or anecdote, which occupied himself at least.
CHAPTER II. A TALE OF MR. DEMPSEY’S GRANDFATHER
The Knight of Gwynne was far too much occupied in his own reflections to attend to his companion, and exhibited a total unconcern to several piquant little narratives of Mrs. Mackie’s dexterity in dealing the cards, of Mrs. Fumbally’s parsimony in domestic arrangements, of Miss Boyle’s effrontery, of Leonard’s intemperance, and even of Miss Daly’s assumed superiority.
“You ‘re taking the wrong path,” said Mr. Dempsey, suddenly interrupting one of his own narratives, at a spot where the two roads diverged,—one proceeding inland, while the other followed the line of the coast.
“With your leave, sir,” said Darcy, coldly, “I will take this way, and if you ‘ll kindly permit it, I will do so alone.”
“Oh, certainly!” said Dempsey, without the slightest sign of umbrage; “would never have thought of joining you had it not been from overhearing an expression so exactly pat to my own condition, that I thought we were brothers in misfortune; you scarcely bear up as well as I do, though.”
Darcy turned abruptly round, as the fear flashed across him, and he muttered to himself, “This fellow knows me; if so, the whole county will soon be as wise as himself, and the place become intolerable.” Oppressed with this unpleasant reflection, the Knight moved on, nor was it till after a considerable interval that he was conscious of his companion’s presence; for Mr. Dempsey still accompanied him, though at the distance of several paces, and as if following a path of his own choosing.
Darcy laughed good-humoredly at the pertinacity of his tormentor; and half amused by the man, and half ashamed of his own rudeness to him, he made some casual observation on the scenery to open a reconciliation.
“The coast is much finer,” said Dempsey, “close to your cottage.”
This was a home-thrust for the Knight, to show him that concealment was of no use against so subtle an adversary.
“‘The Corvy’ is, as you observe, very happily situated,” replied Darcy, calmly; “I scarcely know which to prefer,—the coast-line towards Dunluce, or the bold cliffs that stretch away to Bengore.”
“When the wind comes north-by-west,” said Dempsey, with a shrewd glance of his greenish gray eyes, “there ‘s always a wreck or two between the Skerries and Portrush.”
“Indeed! Is the shore so unsafe as that?”
“Oh, yes. You may expect a very busy winter here when the homeward-bound Americans are coming northward.”
“D——n the fellow! does he take me for a wrecker?” said Darcy to himself, not knowing whether to laugh or be angry.
“Such a curiosity that old ‘Corvy’ is, they tell me,” said Dempsey, emboldened by his success; “every species of weapon and arm in the world, they say, gathered together there.”
“A few swords and muskets,” said the Knight, carelessly; “a stray dirk or two, and some harpoons, furnish the greater part of the armory.”
“Oh, perhaps so! The story goes, however, that old Daly—brother, I believe, of our friend at Mother Fum’s—could arm twenty fellows at a moment’s warning, and did so on more than one occasion too.”
“With what object, in Heaven’s name?”
“Buccaneering, piracy, wrecking, and so on,” said Dempsey, with all the unconcern with which he would have enumerated so many pursuits of the chase.
A hearty roar of laughter broke from the Knight; and when it ceased he said, “I would be sincerely sorry to stand in your shoes, Mr. Dempsey, so near to yonder cliff, if you made that same remark in Mr. Daly’s hearing.”
“He ‘d gain very little by me,” said Mr. Dempsey; “one and eightpence, an old watch, an oyster-knife, and my spectacles, are all the property in my possession—except, when, indeed,” added he, after a pause, “Bob remits the quarter’s allowance.”
“It is only just,” said Darcy, gravely, “to a gentleman who takes such pains to inform himself on the affairs of his neighbors, that I should tell you that Mr. Bagenal Daly is not a pirate, nor am I a wrecker. I am sure you will be generous enough for this unasked information not to require of me a more lengthened account either of my friend or myself.”
“You ‘re in the Revenue, perhaps?” interrupted the undaunted Dempsey; “I thought so when I saw you first.”
Darcy shook his head in dissent.
“Wrong again. Ah! I see it all; the old story. Saw better days—you have just come down here to lie snug and quiet, out of the way of writs and latitats—went too fast—by Jove, that touches myself too! If I hadn’t happened to have a grandfather, I ‘d have been a rich man this day. Did you ever chance to hear of Dodd and Dempsey, the great wine-merchants? My father was son of Dodd and Dempsey,—that is Dempsey, you know; and it was his father-Sam Dempsey—ruined him.”
“No very uncommon circumstance,” said the Knight, sorrowfully, “for an Irish father.”
“You ‘ve heard the story, I suppose?—of course you have; every one knows it.”
“I rather think not,” said the Knight, who was by no means sorry to turn Mr. Dempsey from cross-examination into mere narrative.
“I ‘ll tell it to you; I am sure I ought to know it well, I ‘ve heard my father relate it something like a hundred times.”
“I fear I must decline so pleasant a proposal,” said Darcy, smiling. “At this moment I have an engagement.”
“Never mind. To-morrow will do just as well,” interrupted the inexorable Dempsey. “Come over and take your mutton-chop with me at five, and you shall have the story into the bargain.”
“I regret that I cannot accept so very tempting an invitation,” said Darcy, struggling between his sense of pride and a feeling of astonishment at his companion’s coolness.
“Not come to dinner!” exclaimed Dempsey, as if the thing was scarcely credible. “Oh, very well, only remember”—and here he put an unusual gravity into his words—“only remember the onus is now on you.”
The Knight burst into a hearty laugh at this subtle retort, and, willing as he ever was to go with the humor of the moment, replied,—
“I am ready to accept it, sir, and beg that you will dine with me.”
“When and where?” said Dempsey.
“To-morrow, at that cottage yonder: five is your hour, I believe—we shall say five.”
“Booked!” exclaimed Dempsey, with an air of triumph; while he muttered, with a scarcely subdued voice, “Knew I’d do it!—never failed in my life!”
“Till then, Mr. Dempsey,” said Darcy, removing his hat courteously, as he bowed to him,—“till then—”
“Your most obedient,” replied Dempsey, returning the salute; and so they parted.
“The Corvy,” on the day after the Knight’s visit to Port Ballintray, was a scene of rather amusing bustle; the Knight’s dinner-party, as Helen quizzingly called it, affording occupation for every member of the household. In former times, the only difficult details of an entertainment were in the selection of the guests,—bringing together a company likely to be suitable to each other, and endowed with those various qualities which make up the success of society; now, however, the question was the more material one,—the dinner itself.
It is always a fortunate thing when whatever absurdity our calamities in life excite should be apparent only to ourselves. The laugh which is so difficult to bear from the world is then an actual relief from our troubles. The Darcys felt this truth, as each little embarrassment that arose was food for mirth; and Lady Eleanor, who least of all could adapt herself to such contingencies, became as eager as the rest about the little preparations of the day.
While the Knight hurried hither and thither, giving directions here and instructions there, he explained to Lady Eleanor some few circumstances respecting the character of his guests. It was, indeed, a new kind of company he was about to present to his wife and daughter; but while conscious of the disparity in every respect, he was not the less eager to do the hospitalities of his humble house with all becoming honor. It is true his invitation to Mr. Dempsey was rather forced from him than willingly accorded; he was about the very last kind of person Darcy would have asked to his table, if perfectly free to choose; but, of all men living, the Knight knew least how to escape from a difficulty the outlet to which should cost him any sacrifice of feeling.
“Well, well, it is but once and away; and, after all, the talkativeness of our little friend Dempsey will be so far a relief to poor Leonard, that he will be brought less prominently forward himself, and be suffered to escape unremarked,—a circumstance which, from all that I can see, will afford him sincere pleasure.”
At length all the preparations were happily accomplished: the emissary despatched to Kilrush at daybreak had returned with a much-coveted turkey; the fisherman had succeeded in capturing a lordly salmon; oysters and lobsters poured in abundantly; and Mrs. M’Kerrigan, who had been left as a fixture at “The Corvy,” found her only embarrassment in selection from that profusion of “God’s gifts,” as she phrased it, that now surrounded her. The hour of five drew near, and the ladies were seated in the hall, the doors of which lay open, as the two guests were seen making their way towards the cottage.
“Here they come, papa,” said Helen; “and now for a guess. Is not the short man with the straw hat Mr. Dempsey, and his tall companion Mr. Leonard?”
“Of course it is,” said Lady Eleanor; “who could mistake the garrulous pertinacity of that little thing that gesticulates at every step, or the plodding patience of his melancholy associate?”
The next moment the Knight was welcoming them in front of the cottage. The ceremony of introduction to the ladies being over, Mr. Dempsey, who probably was aware that the demands upon his descriptive powers would not be inconsiderable when he returned to “Mother Fum’s,” put his glass to his eye, and commenced a very close scrutiny of the apartment and its contents.
“Quite a show-box, by Jove!” said he, at last, as he peered through a glass cabinet, where Chinese slippers, with models in ivory and carvings in box, were heaped promiscuously together; “upon my word, sir, you have a very remarkable collection. And who may be our friend in the boat here?” added he, turning to the grim visage of Bagenal Daly himself, who stared with a bold effrontery that would not have disgraced the original.
“The gentleman you see there,” said the Knight, “is the collector himself, and the other is his servant. They are represented in the costumes in which they made their escape from a captivity among the red men.”
“Begad!” said Dempsey, “that fellow with the tortoise painted on his forehead has a look of our old friend, Miss Daly; should n’t wonder if he was a member of her family.”
“You have well guessed it; he is the lady’s brother.”
“Ah, ah!” muttered Dempsey to himself, “always thought there was something odd about her,—never suspected Indian blood, however. How Mother Fum will stare when I tell her she’s a Squaw! Didn’t they show these things at the Rooms in Mary’s Street? I think I saw them advertised in the papers.”
“I think you must mistake,” said the Knight; “they are the private collection of my friend.”
“And where may Woc-woc—confound his name!—the ‘Howling Wind,’ as he is pleased to call himself, be passing his leisure hours just now?”
“He is at present in Dublin, sir; and if you desire, he shall be made aware of your polite inquiries.”
“No, no—hang it, no!—don’t like the look of him. Should have no objection, though, if he ‘d pay old Bob Dempsey a visit, and frighten him out of this world for me.”
“Dinner, my lady,” said old Tate, as he threw open the doors into the dining-room, and bowed with all his accustomed solemnity.
“Hum!” muttered Dempsey, “my lady won’t go down with me,-too old a soldier for that!”
“Will you give my daughter your arm?” said the Knight to the little man, for already Lady Eleanor had passed on with Mr. Leonard.
As Mr. Dempsey arranged his napkin on his knee, he endeavored to catch Leonard’s eye, and telegraph to him his astonishment at the elegance of the table equipage which graced the board. Poor Leonard, however, seldom looked up; a deep sense of shame, the agonizing memory of what he once was, recalled vividly by the sight of those objects, and the appearance of persons which reminded him of his past condition, almost stunned him. The whole seemed like a dream; even though intemperance had degraded him, there were intervals in which his mind, clear to see and reflect, sorrowed deeply over his fallen state. Had the Knight met him with a cold and repulsive deportment, or had he refused to acknowledge him altogether, he could better have borne it than all the kindness of his present manner. It was evident, too, from Lady Eleanor’s tone to him, that she knew nothing of his unhappy fortune, or that if she did, the delicacy with which she treated him was only the more benevolent. Oppressed by such emotions, he sat endeavoring to eat, and trying to listen and interest himself in the conversation around him; but the effort was too much for his strength, and a vague, half-whispered assent, or a dull, unmeaning smile, were about as much as he could contribute to what was passing.
The Knight, whose tact was rarely at fault, saw every straggle that was passing in Leonard’s mind, and adroitly contrived that the conversation should be carried on without any demand upon him, either as talker or listener. If Lady Eleanor and Helen contributed their aid to this end, Mr. Dempsey was not backward on his part, for he talked unceasingly. The good things of the table, to which he did ample justice, afforded an opportunity for catechizing the ladies in their skill in household matters; and Miss Darcy, who seemed immensely amused by the novelty of such a character, sustained her part to admiration, entering deeply into culinary details, and communicating receipts invented for the occasion. At another time, perhaps, the Knight would have checked the spirit of persiflage in which his daughter indulged; but he suffered it now to take its course, well pleased that the mark of her ridicule was not only worthy of the sarcasm, but insensible to its arrow.
“Quite right,-quite right not to try Mother Fum’s when you can get up a little thing like this,-and such capital sherry; look how Tom takes it in,-slips like oil over his lip!”
Leonard looked up. An expression of rebuking severity for a moment crossed his features; but his eyes fell the next instant, and a low, faint sigh escaped him.
“I ought to know what sherry is,—‘Dodd and Dempsey’s’ was the great house for sherry.”
“By the way,” said the Knight, “did not you promise me a little narrative of Dodd and Dempsey, when we parted yesterday?”
“To be sure, I did. Will you have it now?”
Lady Eleanor and Helen rose to withdraw; but Mr. Dempsey, who took the movement as significant, immediately interposed, by saying,—
“Don’t stir, ma’am,-sit down, ladies, I beg; there’s nothing broad in the story,—it might be told before the maids of honor.”
Lady Eleanor and Helen were thunderstruck at the explanation, and the Knight laughed till the tears came.
“My dear Eleanor,” said he, “you really must accept Mr. Dempsey’s assurance, and listen to his story now.”
The ladies took their seats once more, and Mr. Dempsey, having filled his glass, drank off a bumper; but whether it was that the narrative itself demanded a greater exertion at his hands, or that the cold quietude of Lady Eleanor’s manner abashed him, but he found a second bumper necessary before he commenced his task.
“I say,” whispered he to the Knight, “couldn’t you get that decanter out of Leonard’s reach before I begin? He’ll not leave a drop in it while I am talking.”
As if he felt that, after his explanation, the tale should be more particularly addressed to Lady Eleanor, he turned his chair round so as to face her, and thus began:—
“There was once upon a time, ma’am, a Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland who was a Duke. Whether he was Duke of Rutland, or Bedford, or Portland, or any other title it was he had, my memory does n’t serve me; it is enough, however, if I say he was immensely rich, and, like many other people in the same way, immensely in debt. The story goes that he never travelled through England, and caught sight of a handsome place, or fine domain, or a beautiful cottage, that he did n’t go straightway to the owner and buy it down out of the face, as a body might say, whether he would or no. And so in time it came to pass that there was scarcely a county in England without some magnificent house belonging to him. In many parts of Scotland he had them too, and in all probability he would have done the same in Ireland, if he could. Well, ma’am, there never was such rejoicings as Dublin saw the night his Grace arrived to be our Viceroy. To know that we had got a man with one hundred and fifty thousand a year, and a spirit to spend double the money, was a downright blessing from Providence, and there was no saying what might not be the prosperity of Ireland under so auspicious a ruler.
“To do him justice, he did n’t balk public expectation. Open house at the Castle, ditto at the Lodge in the Park, a mansion full of guests in the county Wicklow, a pack of hounds in Kildare, twelve horses training at the Curragh, a yacht like a little man-of-war in Dunleary harbor, large subscriptions to everything like sport, and a pension for life to every man that could sing a jolly song, or write a witty bit of poetry. Well, ma’am, they say, who remember those days, that they saw the best of Ireland; and surely I believe, if his Grace had only lived, and had his own way, the peerage would have been as pleasant, and the bench of bishops as droll, and the ladies of honor as—Well, never mind, I ‘ll pass on.” Here Mr. Dempsey, to console himself for the abruptness of his pause, poured out and drank another bumper of sherry. “Pleasant times they were.” said he, smacking his lips; “and faith, if Tom Leonard himself was alive then, the color of his nose might have made him Commander of the Forces; but, to continue, it was Dodd and Dempsey’s house supplied the sherry,-only the sherry, ma’am; old Stewart, of Belfast, had the port, and Kinnahan the claret and lighter liquors. I may mention, by the way, that my grandfather’s contract included brandy, and that he would n’t have given it up for either of the other two. It was just about this time that Dodd died, and my grandfather was left alone in the firm; but whether it was out of respect for his late partner, or that he might have felt himself lonely, but he always kept up the name of Dodd on the brass plate, and signed the name along with his own; indeed, they say that he once saluted his wife by the name of Mrs. Dodd and Dempsey. But, as I was saying, it was one of those days when my grandfather was seated on a high stool in the back office of his house in Abbey Street, that a fine, tall young fellow, with a blue frock-coat, all braided with gold, and an elegant cocked-hat, with a plume of feathers in it, came tramping into the room, his spurs jingling, and his brass sabre clinking, and his sabretash banging at his legs.
“‘Mr. Dempsey?’ said he.
“‘D. and D.,’ said my grandfather,—‘that is, Dodd and Dempsey, your Grace,’ for he half suspected it was the Duke himself.
“‘I am Captain M’Claverty, of the Scots Greys,’ said he, ‘first aide-de-camp to his Excellency.’
“‘I hope you may live to be colonel of the regiment,’ said my grandfather, for he was as polite and well-bred as any man in Ireland.
“‘That’s too good a sentiment,’ said the captain, ‘not to be pledged in a glass of your own sherry.’
“‘And we’ll do it too,’ said old Dempsey. And he opened the desk, and took out a bottle he had for his own private drinking, and uncorked it with a little pocket corkscrew he always carried about with him, and he produced two glasses, and he and the captain hobnobbed and drank to each other.
“‘Begad!’ said the captain, ‘his Grace sent me to thank you for the delicious wine you supplied him with, but it’s nothing to this,—-not to be compared to it.’
“‘I ‘ve better again,’ said my grandfather. ‘I ‘ve wine that would bring the tears into your eyes when you saw the decanter getting low.’
“The captain stared at him, and maybe it was that the speech was too much for his nerves, but he drank off two glasses one after the other as quick as he could fill them out.
“‘Dempsey,’ said he, looking round cautiously, ‘are we alone?’
“‘We are,’ said my grandfather.
“‘Tell me, then,’ said M’Claverty, ‘how could his Grace get a taste of this real sherry—for himself alone, I mean? Of course, I never thought of his giving it to the Judges, and old Lord Dunboyne, and such like.’
“‘Does he ever take a little sup in his own room, of an evening?’
“‘I am afraid not, but I ‘ll tell you how I think it might be managed. You ‘re a snug fellow, Dempsey, you ‘ve plenty of money muddling away in the bank at three-and-a-half per cent; could n’t you contrive, some way or other, to get into his Excellency’s confidence, and lend him ten or fifteen thousand or so?’
“‘Ay, or twenty,’ said my grandfather,—‘or twenty, if he likes it’
“‘I doubt if he would accept such a sum,’ said the captain, shaking his head; ‘he has bags of money rolling in upon him every week or fortnight; sometimes we don’t know where to put them.’
“‘Oh, of course,’ said my grandfather; ‘I meant no offence, I only said twenty, because, if his Grace would condescend, it is n’t twenty, but a fifty thousand I could give him, and on the nail too.’
“‘You’re a fine fellow, Dempsey, a devilish fine fellow; you ‘re the very kind of fellow the Duke likes,—open-handed, frank, and generous.’
“‘Do you really think he’d like me?’ said my grandfather; and he rocked on the high stool, so that it nearly came down.
“‘Like you! I’ll tell you what it is,’ said he, laying his hand on my grandfather’s knee, ‘before one week was over, he could n’t do without you. You ‘d be there morning, noon, and night; your knife and fork always ready for you, just like one of the family.’
“‘Blood alive!’ said my grandfather, ‘do you tell me so?’
“‘I ‘ll bet you a hundred pounds on it, sir.’
“‘Done,’ said my grandfather, ‘and you must hold the stakes;’ and with that he opened his black pocket-book, and put a note for the amount into the captain’s hand.
“‘This is the 31st of March,’ said the captain, taking out his pencil and tablets. ‘I ‘ll just book the bet.’
“And, indeed,” added Mr. Dempsey, “for that matter, if it was a day later it would have been only more suitable.
“Well, ma’am, what passed between them afterwards I never heard said; but the captain took his leave, and left my grandfather so delighted and overjoyed that he finished all the sherry in the drawer, and when the head clerk came in to ask for an invoice, or a thing of the kind, he found old Mr. Dempsey with his wig on the high stool, and he bowing round it, and calling it your Grace. There ‘s no denying it, ma’am, he was blind drunk.
“About ten days or a fortnight after this time, my grandfather received a note from Teesum and Twist, the solicitors, stating that the draft or the bond was already drawn up for the loan he was about to make his Grace, and begging to know to whom it was to be submitted.
“‘The captain will win his bet, devil a lie in it,’ said my grandfather; ‘he’s going to bring the Duke and myself together.’
“Well, ma’am, I won’t bother you with the law business, though if my father was telling the story he would not spare you one item of it all,—who read this, and who signed the other, and the objections that was made by them thieving attorneys! and how the Solicitor-General struck out this and put in that clause; but to tell you the truth, ma’am, I think that all the details spoil, what we may call, the poetry of the narrative; it is finer to say he paid the money, and the Duke pocketed it.
“Well, weeks went over and months long, and not a bit of the Duke did my grandfather see, nor M’Claverty either; he never came near him. To be sure, his Grace drank as much sherry as ever; indeed, I believe out of love to my grandfather they drank little else. From the bishops and the chaplain, down to the battle-axe guards, it was sherry, morning, noon, and night; and though this was very pleasing to my grandfather, he was always wishing for the time when he was to be presented to his Grace, and their friendship was to begin. My grandfather could think of nothing else, daylight and dark. When he walked, he was always repeating to himself what his Grace might say to him, and what he would say to his Grace; and he was perpetually going up at eleven o’clock, when the guard was relieved in the Castle-yard, suspecting that every now and then a footman in blue and silver would come out, and, touching his elbow, whisper in his ear, ‘Mr. Dempsey, the Duke ‘s waiting for you.’ But, my dear ma’am, he might have waited till now, if Providence had spared him, and the devil a taste of the same message would ever have come near him, or a sight of the same footman in blue! It was neither more nor less than a delusion, or an illusion, or a confusion, or whatever the name of it is. At last, ma’am, in one of his prowlings about the Phoenix Park, who does he come on but M’Claverty? He was riding past in a great hurry; but he pulled up when he saw my grandfather, and called out, ‘Hang it! who’s this? I ought to know you.’
“‘Indeed you ought,’ said my grandfather. ‘I ‘m Dodd and Dempsey, and by the same token there’s a little bet between us, and I ‘d like to know who won and who lost.’
“‘I think there’s small doubt about that,’ said the captain. ‘Did n’t his Grace borrow twenty thousand of you?’
“‘He did, no doubt of it.’
“‘And was n’t it my doing?’
“‘Upon my conscience, I can’t deny it.’
“‘Well, then, I won the wager, that’s clear.’
“‘Oh! I see now,’ said my grandfather; ‘that was the wager, was it? Oh, bedad! I think you might have given me odds, if that was our bet.’
“‘Why, what did you think it was?’
“‘Oh, nothing at all, sir. It’s no matter now; it was another thing was passing in my mind. I was hoping to have the honor of making his acquaintance, nattered as I was by all you told me about him.’
“‘Ah! that’s difficult, I confess,’ said the captain; ‘but still one might do something. He wants a little money just now. If you could make interest to be the lender, I would n’t say that what you suggest is impossible.’
“Well, ma’am, it was just as it happened before; the old story,—more parchment, more comparing of deeds, a heavy check on the bank for the amount.
“When it was all done, M’Claverty came in one morning and in plain clothes to my grandfather’s back office.
“‘Dodd and Dempsey,’ said he, ‘I ‘ve been thinking over your business, and I’ll tell you what my plan is. Old Vereker, the chamberlain, is little better than a beast, thinks nothing of anybody that is n’t a lord or a viscount, and, in fact, if he had his will, the Lodge in the Phoenix would be more like Pekin in Tartary than anything else? but I ‘ll tell you, if he won’t present you at the levee, which he flatly refuses at present, I ‘ll do the thing in a way of my own. His Grace is going to spend a week up at Ballyriggan House, in the county of Wicklow, and I ‘ll contrive it, when he ‘s taking his morning walk through the shrubbery, to present you. All you ‘ve to do is to be ready at a turn of the walk. I ‘ll show you the place, you ‘ll hear his foot on the gravel, and you ‘ll slip out, just this way. Leave the rest to me.’
“‘It’s beautiful,’ said my grandfather. ‘Begad, that’s elegant.’
“‘There ‘s one difficulty,’ said M’Claverty,—‘one infernal difficulty.’
“‘What’s that?’ asked my grandfather.
“‘I may be obliged to be out of the way. I lost five fifties at Daly’s the other night, and I may have to cross the water for a few weeks.’
“‘Don’t let that trouble you,’ said my grandfather; ‘there’s the paper.’ And he put the little bit of music into his hand; and sure enough a pleasanter sound than the same crisp squeak of a new note no man ever listened to.
“‘It ‘s agreed upon now?’ said my grandfather.
“‘All right,’ said M’Claverty; and with a jolly slap on the shoulder, he said, ‘Good-morning, D. and D. and away he went.
“He was true to his word. That day three weeks my grandfather received a note in pencil; it was signed J. M’C, and ran thus: ‘Be up at Ballyriggan at eleven o’clock on Wednesday, and wait at the foot of the hill, near the birch copse, beside the wooden bridge. Keep the left of the path, and lie still.’ Begad, ma’am, it’s well nobody saw it but himself, or they might have thought that Dodd and Dempsey was turned highwayman.
“My grandfather was prouder of the same note, and happier that morning, than if it was an order for fifty butts of sherry. He read it over and over, and he walked up and down the little back office, picturing out the whole scene, settling the chairs till he made a little avenue between them, and practising the way he ‘d slip out slyly and surprise his Grace. No doubt, it would have been as good as a play to have looked at him.
“One difficulty preyed upon his mind,—what dress ought he to wear? Should he be in a court suit, or ought he rather to go in his robes as an alderman? It would never do to appear in a black coat, a light gray spencer, punch-colored shorts and gaiters, white hat with a strip of black crape on it,—mere Dodd and Dempsey! That wasn’t to be thought of. If he could only ask his friend M’Hale, the fishmonger, who was knighted last year, he could tell all about it. M’Hale, however, would blab. He ‘d tell it to the whole livery; every alderman of Skinner’s Alley would know it in a week. No, no, the whole must be managed discreetly; it was a mutual confidence between the Duke and ‘D. and D.’ ‘At all events,’ said my grandfather, ‘a court dress is a safe thing;’ and out he went and bespoke one, to be sent home that evening, for he could n’t rest till he tried it on, and felt how he could move his head in the straight collar, and bow, without the sword tripping him up and pitching him into the Duke. I ‘ve heard my father say that in the days that elapsed till the time mentioned for the interview, my grandfather lost two stone in weight. He walked half over the county Dublin, lying in ambush in every little wood he could see, and jumping out whenever he could see or hear any one coming,—little surprises which were sometimes taken as practical jokes, very unbecoming a man of his age and appearance.
“Well, ma’am, Wednesday morning came, and at six o’clock my grandfather was on the way to Ballyriggan, and at nine he was in the wood, posted at the very spot M’Claverty told him, as happy as any man could be whose expectations were so overwhelming. A long hour passed over, and another; nobody passed but a baker’s boy with a bull-dog after him, and an old woman that was stealing brushwood in the shrubbery. My grandfather remarked her well, and determined to tell his Grace of it; but his own business soon drove that out of his head, for eleven o’clock came, and now there was no knowing the moment the Duke might appear. With his watch in his hand, he counted the minutes, ay, even the seconds; if he was a thief going to be hanged, and looking out over the heads of the crowd for a fellow to gallop in with a reprieve, he could n’t have suffered more: his heart was in his mouth. At last, it might be about half-past eleven, he heard a footstep on the gravel, and then a loud, deep cough,—‘a fine kind of cough,’ my grandfather afterwards called it. He peeped out; and there, sure enough, at about sixty paces, coming down the walk, was a large, grand-looking man,—not that he was dressed as became him, for, strange as you may think it, the Lord-Lieutenant had on a shooting-jacket, and a pair of plaid trousers, and cloth boots, and a big lump of a stick in his hand,—and lucky it was that my grandfather knew him, for he bought a picture of him. On he came nearer and nearer; every step on the gravel-walk drove out of my grandfather’s head half a dozen of the fine things he had got off by heart to say during the interview, until at last he was so overcome by joy, anxiety, and a kind of terror, that he could n’t tell where he was, or what was going to happen to him, but he had a kind of instinct that reminded him he was to jump out when the Duke was near him; and ‘pon my conscience so he did, clean and clever, into the middle of the walk, right in front of his Grace. My grandfather used to say, in telling the story, that he verily believed his feelings at that moment would have made him burst a blood-vessel if it wasn’t that the Duke put his hands to his sides and laughed till the woods rang again; but, between shame and fright, my grandfather did n’t join in the laugh.
“‘In Heaven’s name!’ said his Grace, ‘who or what are you?—this isn’t May-day.’
“My grandfather took this speech as a rebuke for standing so bold in his Grace’s presence; and being a shrewd man, and never deficient in tact, what does he do but drops down on his two knees before him? ‘My Lord,’ said he, ‘I am only Dodd and Dempsey.’
“Whatever there was droll about the same house of Dodd and Dempsey I never heard, but his Grace laughed now till he had to lean against a tree. ‘Well, Dodd and Dempsey, if that’s your name, get up. I don’t mean you any harm. Take courage, man; I am not going to knight you. By the way, are you not the worthy gentleman who lent me a trifle of twenty thousand more than once?’
“My grandfather could n’t speak, but he moved his lips, and he moved his bands, this way, as though to say the honor was too great for him, but it was all true.
“‘Well, Dodd and Dempsey, I ‘ve a very high respect for you,’ said his Grace; ‘I intend, some of these fine days, when business permits, to go over and eat an oyster at your villa on the coast.’
“My grandfather remembers no more; indeed, ma’am, I believe that at that instant his Grace’s condescension had so much overwhelmed him that he had a kind of vision before his eyes of a whole wood full of Lord-Lieutenants, with about thirty thousand people opening oysters for them as fast as they could eat, and he himself running about with a pepper-caster, pressing them to eat another ‘black fin.’ It was something of that kind; for when he got on his legs a considerable time must have elapsed, as he found all silent around him, and a smart rheumatic pain in his knee-joints from the cold of the ground.
“The first thing my grandfather did when he got back to town was to remember that he had no villa on the sea-coast, nor any more suitable place to eat an oyster than his house in Abbey Street, for he could n’t ask his Grace to go to ‘Killeen’s.’ Accordingly he set out the next day in search of a villa, and before a week was over he had as beautiful a place about a mile below Howth as ever was looked at; and that he mightn’t be taken short, he took a lease of two oyster-beds, and made every preparation in life for the Duke’s visit. He might have spared himself the trouble. Whether it was that somebody had said something of him behind his back, or that politics were weighing on the Duke’s mind,—the Catholics were mighty troublesome then,—or, indeed, that he forgot it altogether, clean, but so it was, my grandfather never heard more of the visit, and if the oysters waited for his Grace to come and eat them, they might have filled up Howth harbor.
“A year passed over, and my grandfather was taking his solitary walk in the Park, very nearly in the same place as before,—for you see, ma’am, he could n’t bear the sight of the seacoast, and the very smell of shell-fish made him ill,—when somebody called out his name. He looked up, and there was M’Claverty in a gig.
“‘Well, D. and D., how goes the world with you?’
“‘Very badly indeed,’ says my grandfather; his heart was full, and he just told him the whole story.
“‘I’ll settle it all,’ said the captain; ‘leave it to me. There ‘s to be a review to-morrow in the Park; get on the back of the best horse you can find,—the Duke is a capital judge of a nag,—ride him briskly about the field; he ‘ll notice you, never fear; the whole thing will come up before his memory, and you ‘ll have him to breakfast before the week’s over.’
“‘Do you think so?—do you really think so?’
“‘I ‘ll take my oath of it. I say, D. and D., could you do a little thing at a short date just now?’
“‘If it was n’t too heavy,’ said my grandfather, with a faint sigh.
“‘Only a hundred.’
“‘Well,’ said he, ‘you may send it down to the office. Good-bye.’ And with that he turned back towards town again; not to go home, however, for he knew well there was no time to lose, but straight he goes to Dycer’s,—it was old Tom was alive in those days, and a shrewder man than Tom Dycer there never lived. They tell you, ma’am, there ‘s chaps in London that if you send them your height, and your width, and your girth round the waist, they ‘ll make you a suit of clothes that will fit you like your own skin; but, ‘pon my conscience, I believe if you ‘d give your age and the color of your hair to old Tom Dycer, he could provide you a horse the very thing to carry you. Whenever a stranger used to come into the yard, Tom would throw a look at him, out of the corner of his eye,—for he had only one, there was a feather on the other,—Tom would throw a look at him, and he’d shout out, ‘Bring out 42; take out that brown mare with the white fetlocks.’ That’s the way he had of doing business, and the odds were five to one but the gentleman rode out half an hour after on the beast Tom intended for him. This suited my grandfather’s knuckle well; for when he told him that it was a horse to ride before the Lord-Lieutenant he wanted, ‘Bedad,’ says Tom, ‘I’ll give you one you might ride before the Emperor of Chaney.—Here, Dennis, trot out 176.’ To all appearance, ma’am, 176 was no common beast, for every man in the yard, big and little, set off, when they heard the order, down to the stall where he stood, and at last two doors were flung wide open, and out he came with a man leading him. He was seventeen hands two if he was an inch, bright gray, with flea-bitten marks all over him; he held his head up so high at one end, and his tail at the other, that my grandfather said he ‘d have frightened the stoutest fox-hunter to look at him; besides, my dear, he went with his knees in his mouth when he trotted, and gave a skelp of his hind legs at every stride, that it was n’t safe to be within four yards of him.
“‘There’s action!’ says Tom,—‘there ‘s bone and figure! Quiet as a lamb, without stain or blemish, warranted in every harness, and to carry a lady.’
“‘I wish he ‘d carry a wine-merchant safe for about one hour and a half,’ said my grandfather to himself. ‘What’s his price?’
“But Tom would n’t mind him, for he was going on reciting the animal’s perfections, and telling him how he was bred out of Kick the Moon, by Moll Flanders, and that Lord Dunraile himself only parted with him because he did n’t think him showy enough for a charger. ‘Though, to be sure,’ said Tom, ‘he’s greatly improved since that. Will you try him in the school, Mr. Dempsey?’ said he; ‘not but I tell you that you ‘ll find him a little mettlesome or so there; take him on the grass, and he’s gentleness itself,—he’s a kid, that’s what he is.’
“‘And his price?’ said my grandfather.
“Dycer whispered something in his ear.
“‘Blood alive!’ said my grandfather.
“‘Devil a farthing less. Do you think you ‘re to get beauty and action, ay, and gentle temper, for nothing?’
“My dear, the last words, ‘gentle temper,’ wasn’t well out of his mouth when ‘the kid’ put his two hind-legs into the little pulpit where the auctioneer was sitting, and sent him flying through the window behind him into the stall.
“‘That comes of tickling him,’ said Tom; ‘them blackguards never will let a horse alone.’
“‘I hope you don’t let any of them go out to the reviews in the Park, for I declare to Heaven, if I was on his back then, Dodd and Dempsey would be D. D. sure enough.’
“‘With a large snaffle, and the saddle well back,’ says Tom, ‘he’s a lamb.’
“‘God grant it,’ says my grandfather; ‘send him over to me to-morrow, about eleven.’ He gave a check for the money,—we never heard how much it was,—and away he went.
“That must have been a melancholy evening for him, for he sent for old Rogers, the attorney, and after he was measured for breeches and boots, he made his will and disposed of his effects, ‘For there’s no knowing,’ said he, ‘what 176 may do for me.’ Rogers did his best to persuade him off the excursion,—
“‘Dress up one of Dycer’s fellows like you; let him go by the Lord-Lieutenant prancing and rearing, and then you yourself can appear on the ground, all splashed and spurred, half an hour after.’
“‘No,’ says my grandfather, ‘I ‘ll go myself.’
“For so it is, there ‘s no denying, when a man has got ambition in his heart it puts pluck there. Well, eleven o’clock came, and the whole of Abbey Street was on foot to see my grandfather; there was n’t a window had n’t five or six faces in it, and every blackguard in the town was there to see him go off, just as if it was a show.
“‘Bad luck to them,’ says my grandfather; ‘I wish they had brought the horse round to the stable-yard, and let me get up in peace.’
“And he was right there,—for the stirrup, when my grandfather stood beside the horse, was exactly even with his chin; but somehow, with the help of the two clerks and the book-keeper and the office stool, he got up on his back with as merry a cheer as ever rung out to welcome him, while a dirty blackguard, with two old pocket-handkerchiefs for a pair of breeches, shouted out, ‘Old Dempsey’s going to get an appetite for the oysters!’
“Considering everything, 176 behaved very well; he did n’t plunge, and he did n’t kick, and my grandfather said, ‘Providence was kind enough not to let him rear!’ but somehow he wouldn’t go straight but sideways, and kept lashing his long tail on my grandfather’s legs and sometimes round his body, in a way that terrified him greatly, till he became used to it.
“‘Well, if riding be a pleasure,’ says my grandfather, ‘people must be made different from me.’
“For, saving your favor, ma’am, he was as raw as a griskin, and there was n’t a bit of him the size of a half-crown he could sit on without a cry-out; and no other pace would the beast go but this little jig-jig, from side to side, while he was tossing his head and flinging his mane about, just as if to say, ‘Could n’t I pitch you sky-high if I liked? Could n’t I make a Congreve-rocket of you, Dodd and Dempsey?’
“When he got on the ‘Fifteen Acres,’ it was only the position he found himself in that destroyed the grandeur of the scene; for there were fifty thousand people assembled at least, and there was a line of infantry of two miles long, and the artillery was drawn up at one end, and the cavalry stood beyond them, stretching away towards Knockmaroon.
“My grandfather was now getting accustomed to his sufferings, and he felt that, if 176 did no more, with God’s help he could bear it for one day; and so he rode on quietly outside the crowd, attracting, of course, a fair share of observation, for he wasn’t always in the saddle, but sometimes a little behind or before it. Well, at last there came a cloud of dust, rising at the far end of the field, and it got thicker and thicker, and then it broke, and there were white plumes dancing, and gold glittering, and horses all shaking their gorgeous trappings, for it was the staff was galloping up, and then there burst out a great cheer, so loud that nothing seemed possible to be louder, until bang—bang—bang, eighteen large guns went thundering together, and the whole line of infantry let off a clattering volley, till you ‘d think the earth was crashing open.
“‘Devil’s luck to ye all! couldn’t you be quiet a little longer?’ says D. and D., for he was trying to get an easy posture to sit in; but just at this moment 176 pricked up his ears, made three bounds in the air, as if something lifted him up, shook his head like a fish, and away he went: wasn’t it wonderful that my grandfather kept his seat? He remembers, he says, that at each bound he was a yard over his back; but as he was a heavy man, and kept his legs open, he had the luck to come down in the same place, and a sore place it must have been! for he let a screech out of him each time that would have pierced the heart of a stone. He knew very little more what happened, except that he was galloping away somewhere, until at last he found himself in a crowd of people, half dead with fatigue and fright, and the horse thick with foam.
“‘Where am I?’ says my grandfather.
“‘You ‘re in Lucan, sir,’ says a man.
“‘And where ‘s the review?’ says my grandfather.
“‘Five miles behind you, sir.’
“‘Blessed Heaven!’ says he; ‘and where ‘s the Duke?’
“‘God knows,’ said the man, giving a wink to the crowd, for they thought he was mad.
“‘Won’t you get off and take some refreshment?’ says the man, for he was the owner of a little public.
“‘Get off!’ says my grandfather; ‘it’s easy talking! I found it hard enough to get on. Bring me a pint of porter where I am.’ And so he drained off the liquor, and he wiped his face, and he turned the beast’s head once more towards town.
“When my grandfather reached the Park again, he was, as you may well believe, a tired and a weary man; and, indeed, for that matter, the beast did n’t seem much fresher than himself, for he lashed his sides more rarely, and he condescended to go straight, and he didn’t carry his head higher than his rider’s. At last they wound their way up through the fir copse at the end of the field, and caught sight of the review, and, to be sure, if poor D. and D. left the ground before under a grand salute of artillery and small arms, another of the same kind welcomed him back again. It was an honor he ‘d have been right glad to have dispensed with, for when 176 heard it, he looked about him to see which way he ‘d take, gave a loud neigh, and, with a shake that my grandfather said he ‘d never forget, he plunged forward, and went straight at the thick of the crowd; it must have been a cruel sight to have seen the people running for their lives. The soldiers that kept the line laughed heartily at the mob; but they hadn’t the joke long to themselves, for my grandfather went slap at them into the middle of the field; and he did that day what I hear has been very seldom done by cavalry,—he broke a square of the Seventy-ninth Highlanders, and scattered them over the field.
In truth, the beast must have been the devil himself; for wherever he saw most people, it was there he always went. There were at this time three heavy dragoons and four of the horse-police, with drawn swords, in pursuit of my grandfather; and if he were the enemy of the human race, the cries of the multitude could not have been louder, as one universal shout arose of ‘Cut him down! Cleave him in two!’ And, do you know, he said, afterwards, he ‘d have taken it as a mercy of Providence if they had. Well, my dear, when he had broke through the Highlanders, scattered the mob, dispersed the band, and left a hole in the big drum you could have put your head through, 176 made for the staff, who, I may remark, were all this time enjoying the confusion immensely. When, however, they saw my grandfather heading towards them, there was a general cry of ‘Here he comes! here he comes! Take care, your Grace!’ And there arose among the group around the Duke a scene of plunging, kicking, and rearing, in the midst of which in dashed my grandfather. Down went an aide-de-camp on one side; 176 plunged, and off went the town-major at the other; while a stroke of a sabre, kindly intended for my grandfather’s skull, came down on the horse’s back and made him give plunge the third, which shot his rider out of the saddle, and sent him flying through the air like a shell, till he alighted under the leaders of a carriage where the Duchess and the Ladies of Honor were seated.
“Twenty people jumped from their horses now to finish him; if they were bunting a rat, they could not have been more venomous.
“‘Stop! stop!’ said the Duke; ‘he’s a capital fellow, don’t hurt him. Who are you, my brave little man? You ride like Chifney for the Derby.’
“‘God knows who I am!’ says my grandfather, creeping out, and wiping his face. ‘I was Dodd and Dempsey when I left home this morning; but I ‘m bewitched, devil a lie in it.’
“‘Dempsey, my Lord Duke,’ said M’Claverty, coming up at the moment. ‘Don’t you know him?’ And he whispered a few words in his Grace’s ear.
“‘Oh, yes, to be sure,’ said the Viceroy. ‘They tell me you have a capital pack of hounds, Dempsey. What do you hunt?’
“‘Horse, foot, and dragoons, my Lord,’ said my grandfather; and, to be sure, there was a jolly roar of laughter after the words, for poor D. and D. was just telling his mind, without meaning anything more.
“‘Well, then,’ said the Duke, ‘if you ‘ve always as good sport as to-day, you ‘ve capital fun of it.’
“‘Oh, delightful, indeed!’ said my grandfather; ‘never enjoyed myself more in my life.’
“‘Where ‘s his horse?’ said his Grace.
“‘He jumped down into the sand-quarry and broke his neck, my Lord Duke.’
“‘The heavens be praised!’ said my grandfather; ‘if it’s true, I am as glad as if I got fifty pounds.’
“The trumpets now sounded for the cavalry to march past, and the Duke was about to move away, when M’Claverty again whispered something in his ear.
“‘Very true,’ said he; ‘well thought of. I say, Dempsey, I ‘ll go over some of these mornings and have a run with your hounds.’
“My grandfather rubbed his eyes and looked up, but all he saw was about twenty staff-officers with their hats off; for every man of them saluted my father as they passed, and the crowd made way for him with as much respect as if it was the Duke himself. He soon got a car to bring him home, and notwithstanding all his sufferings that day, and the great escape he had of his life, there wasn’t as proud a man in Dublin as himself.
“‘He’s coming to hunt with my hounds!’ said he; ‘’t is n’t to take an oyster and a glass of wine, and be off again!—no, he’s coming down to spend the whole day with me.’
“The thought was ecstasy; it only had one drawback. Dodd and Dempsey’s house had never kept hounds. Well, ma’am, I needn’t detain you long about what happened; it’s enough if I say that in less than six weeks my grandfather had bought up Lord Tyrawley’s pack, and his hunting-box and horses, and I believe his grooms; and though he never ventured on the back of a beast himself, he did nothing from morning to night but listen and talk about hunting, and try to get the names of the dogs by heart, and practise to cry ‘Tally-ho!’ and ‘Stole away!’ and ‘Ho-ith! ho-ith!’ with which, indeed, he used to start out of his sleep at night, so full he was of the sport. From the 1st of September he never had a red coat off his back. ‘Pon my conscience, I believe he went to bed in his spurs, for he did n’t know what moment the Duke might be on him, and that’s the way the time went on till spring; but not a sign of his Grace, not a word, not a hint that he ever thought more of his promise! Well, one morning my grandfather was walking very sorrowfully down near the Curragh, where his hunting-lodge was, when he saw them roping-in the course for the races, and he heard the men talking of the magnificent cup the Duke was to give for the winner of the three-year-old stakes, and the thought flashed on him, ‘I’ll bring myself to his memory that way.’ And what does he do, but he goes back to the house and tells his trainer to go over to the racing-stables, and buy, not one, nor two, but the three best horses that were entered for the race. Well, ma’am, their engagements were very heavy, and he had to take them all on himself, and it cost him a sight of money. It happened that this time he was on the right scent, for down comes M’Claverty the same day with orders from the Duke to take the odds, right and left, on one of the three, a little mare called Let-Me-Alone-Before-the-People; she was one of his own breeding, and he had a conceit out of her. Well, M’Claverty laid on the money here and there, till he stood what between the Duke’s bets and all the officers of the staff and his own the heaviest winner or loser on that race.
“‘She’s Martin’s mare, is n’t she?’ said M’Claverty.
“‘No, sir, she was bought this morning by Mr. Dempsey, of Tear Fox Lodge.’
“‘The devil she is,’ said M’Claverty; and he jumped on his horse, and he cantered over to the Lodge.
“‘Mr. Dempsey at home?’ says he.
“‘Yes, sir.’
“‘Give him this card, and say, I beg the favor of seeing him for a few moments.’
“The man went off, and came back in a few minutes, with the answer, ‘Mr. Dempsey is very sorry, but he ‘s engaged.’
“‘Oh, oh! that’s it!’ says M’Claverty to himself; ‘I see how the wind blows. I say, my man, tell him I ‘ve a message from his Grace the Lord-Lieutenant.’
“Well, the answer came for the captain to send the message in, for my grandfather could n’t come out.
“‘Say, it’s impossible,’ said M’Claverty; ‘it’s for his own private ear.’
“Dodd and Dempsey was strong in my grandfather that day: he would listen to no terms.
“‘No,’ says he, ‘if the goods are worth anything, they never come without an invoice. I ‘ll have nothing to say to him.’
“But the captain wasn’t to be balked; for, in spite of everything, he passed the servant, and came at once into the room where my grandfather was sitting,—ay, and before he could help it, was shaking him by both hands as if he was his brother.
“‘Why the devil didn’t you let me in?’ said he; ‘I came from the Duke with a message for you.’
“‘Bother!’ says my grandfather.
“‘I did, though,’ says he; ‘he’s got a heavy book on your little mare, and he wants you to make your boy ride a waiting race, and not win the first beat,—you understand?’
“‘I do,’ says my grandfather, ‘perfectly; and he’s got a deal of money on her, has he?’
“‘He has,’ said the captain; ‘and every one at the Castle, too, high and low, from the chief secretary down to the second coachman,—we are all backing her.’
“‘I am glad of it,—I am sincerely glad of it,’ said my grandfather, rubbing his hands.
“‘I knew you would be, old boy!’ cried the captain, joyfully.
“‘Ah, but you don’t know why; you ‘d never guess.’
“M’Claverty stared at him, but said nothing.
“‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ resumed my grandfather; ‘the reason is this: I ‘ll not let her run,—no, divil a step! I ‘ll bring her up to the ground, and you may look at her, and see that she ‘s all sound and safe, in top condition, and with a skin like a looking-glass, and then I ‘ll walk her back again! And do you know why I ‘ll do this?’ said he, while his eyes flashed fire, and his lip trembled; ‘just because I won’t suffer the house of Dodd and Dempsey to be humbugged as if we were greengrocers! Two years ago, it was to “eat an oyster with me;” last year it was a “day with my hounds;” maybe now his Grace would join the race dinner; but that’s all past and gone,—I ‘ll stand it no longer.’
“‘Confound it, man,’ said the captain, ‘the Duke must have forgotten it. You never reminded him of his engagement. He ‘d have been delighted to have come to you if he only recollected.’
“‘I am sorry my memory was better than his,’ said my grandfather, ‘and I wish you a very good morning.’
“‘Oh, don’t go; wait a moment; let us see if we can’t put this matter straight. You want the Duke to dine with you?’
“‘No, I don’t; I tell you I ‘ve given it up.’
“‘Well, well, perhaps so; will it do if you dine with him?’
“My grandfather had his hand on the lock,—he was just going,—he turned round, and fixed his eyes on the captain.
“‘Are you in earnest, or is this only more of the same game?’ said he, sternly.
“‘I’ll make that very easy to you,’ said the captain; ‘I ‘ll bring the invitation to you this night; the mare doesn’t run till to-morrow; if you don’t receive the card, the rest is in your own power.’
“Well, ma’am, my story is now soon told; that night, about nine o’clock, there comes a footman, all splashed and muddy, in a Castle livery, up to the door of the Lodge, and he gave a violent pull at the bell, and when the servant opened the door, he called out in a loud voice, ‘From his Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant,’ and into the saddle he jumped, and away he was like lightning; and, sure enough, it was a large card, all printed, except a word here and there, and it went something this way:—
“‘I am commanded by his Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant to request the pleasure of Mr. Dempsey’s company at dinner on Friday, the 23d instant, at the Lodge, Phoenix Park, at seven o’clock.
“‘Granville Vereker, Chamberlain.
“‘Swords and Bags.’
“‘At last!’ said my grandfather, and he wiped the tears from his eyes; for to say the truth, ma’am, it was a long chase without ever getting once a ‘good view.’ I must hurry on; the remainder is easy told. Let-Me-Alone-Before-the-People won the cup, my grandfather was chaired home from the course in the evening, and kept open house at the Lodge for all comers while the races lasted; and at length the eventful day drew near on which he was to realize all his long-coveted ambition. It was on the very morning before, however, that he put on his Court suit for about the twentieth time, and the tailor was standing trembling before him while my grandfather complained of a wrinkle here or a pucker there.
“‘You see,’ said he, ‘you’ve run yourself so close that you ‘ve no time now to alter these things before the dinner.’
“‘I ‘ll have time enough, sir,’ says the man, ‘if the news is true.’
“‘What news?’ says my grandfather, with a choking in his throat, for a sudden fear came over him.
“‘The news they have in town this morning.’
“‘What is it?—speak it out, man!’
“‘They say— But sure you ‘ve heard it, sir?’
“‘Go on!’ says my grandfather; and he got him by the shoulders and shook him. ‘Go on, or I’ll strangle you!’
“‘They say, sir, that the Ministry is out, and—’
“‘And, well—’
“‘And that the Lord-Lieutenant has resigned, and the yacht is coming round to Dunleary to take him away this evening, for he won’t stay longer than the time to swear in the Lords Justices,—he’s so glad to be out of Ireland.’
“My grandfather sat down on the chair, and began to cry, and well he might, for not only was the news true, but he was ruined besides. Every farthing of the great fortune that Dodd and Dempsey made was lost and gone,—scattered to the winds; and when his affairs were wound up, he that was thought one of the richest men in Dublin was found to be something like nine thousand pounds worse than nothing. Happily for him, his mind was gone too, and though he lived a few years after, near Finglass, he was always an innocent, didn’t remember anybody, nor who he was, but used to go about asking the people if they knew whether his Grace the Lord-Lieutenant had put off his dinner-party for the 23d; and then he ‘d pull out the old card to show them, for he kept it in a little case, and put it under his pillow every night till he died.”
While Mr. Dempsey’s narrative continued, Tom Leonard indulged freely and without restraint in the delights of the Knight’s sherry, forgetting not only all his griefs, but the very circumstances and people around him. Had the party maintained a conversational tone, it is probable that he would have been able to adhere to the wise resolutions he had planned for his guidance on leaving home; unhappily, the length of the tale, the prosy monotony of the speaker’s voice, the deepening twilight which stole on ere the story drew to a close, were influences too strong for prudence so frail; an instinct told him that the decanter was close by, and every glass he drained either drowned a care or stifled a compunction.
The pleasant buzz of voices which succeeded to the anecdote of Dodd and Dempsey aroused Leonard from his dreary stupor. Wine and laughter and merry voices were adjuncts he had not met for many a day before; and, strangely enough, the only emotions they could call up were some vague, visionary sorrowings over his fallen and degraded condition.
“By Jove!” said Dempsey, in a whisper to Darcy, “the lieutenant has more sympathy for my grandfather than I have myself,—I ‘ll be hanged if he is n’t wiping his eyes! So you see, ma’am,” added he, aloud, “it was a taste for grandeur ruined the Dempseys; the same ambition that has destroyed states and kingdoms has brought your humble servant to a trifle of thirty-eight pounds four and nine per annum for all worldly comforts and virtuous enjoyments; but, as the old ballad says,—
‘Though classic ‘t is to show one’s grief,
And cry like Carthaginian Marius,
I ‘ll not do this, nor ask relief,
Like that ould beggar Belisarius.’
No, ma’am, ‘Never give in while there’s a score behind the door,’—that’s the motto of the Dempseys. If it’s not on their coat-of-arms, it’s written in their hearts.”
“Your grandfather, however, did not seem to possess the family courage,” said the Knight, slyly.
“Well, and what would you have? Wasn’t he brave enough for a wine-merchant?”
“The ladies will give us some tea, Leonard,” said the Knight, as Lady Eleanor and her daughter had, some time before, slipped unobserved from the room.
“Yes, Colonel, always ready.”
“That’s the way with him,” whispered Dempsey; “he’d swear black and blue this minute that you commanded the regiment he served in. He very often calls me the quartermaster.”
The party rose to join the ladies; and while Leonard maintained his former silence, Dempsey once more took on himself the burden of the conversation by various little anecdotes of the Fumbally household, and sketches of life and manners at Port Ballintray.
So perfectly at ease did he find himself, so inspired by the happy impression he felt convinced he was making, that he volunteered a song, “if the young lady would only vouchsafe few chords on the piano” by way of accompaniment,—a proposition Helen acceded to.
Thus passed the evening,—a period in which Lady
Eleanor more than once doubted if the whole were not a dream, and the persons before her the mere creations of disordered fancy; an impression certainly not lessened as Mr. Dempsey’s last words at parting conveyed a pressing invitation to a “little thing he ‘d get up for them at Mother Finn’s.”
CHAPTER III. SOME VISITORS AT GWYNNE ABBEY
It is a fact not only well worthy of mention, but pregnant with its own instruction, that persons who have long enjoyed all the advantages of an elevated social position better support the reverses which condemned them to humble and narrow fortunes, than do the vulgar-minded, when, by any sudden caprice of the goddess, they are raised to a conspicuous and distinguished elevation.
There is in the gentleman, and still more in the gentlewoman,—as the very word itself announces,—an element of placidity and quietude that suggests a spirit of accommodation to whatever may arise to ruffle the temper or disturb the equanimity. Self-respect and consideration for others are a combination not inconsistent or unfrequent, and there are few who have not seen, some time or other, a reduced gentleman dispensing in a lowly station the mild graces and accomplishments of his order, and, while elevating others, sustaining himself.
The upstart, on the other hand, like a mariner in some unknown sea without chart or compass, has nothing to guide him; impelled hither or thither as caprice or passion dictate, he is neither restrained by a due sense of decorum, nor admonished by a conscientious feeling of good breeding. With the power that rank and wealth bestow he becomes not distinguished, but eccentric; unsustained by the companionship of his equals, he tries to assimilate himself to them rather by their follies than their virtues, and thus presents to the world that mockery of rank and station which makes good men sad, and bad men triumphant.
To these observations we have been led by the altered fortunes of those two families of whom our story treats. If the Darcys suddenly found themselves brought down to a close acquaintanceship with poverty and its fellows, they bore the change with that noble resignation that springs from true regard for others at the sacrifice of ourselves. The little shifts and straits of narrowed means were ever treated jestingly, the trials that a gloomy spirit had converted into sorrows made matters of merriment and laughter; and as the traveller sees the Arab tent in the desert spread beside the ruined temple of ancient grandeur, and happy faces and kind looks beneath the shade of ever-vanished splendor, so did this little group maintain in their fall the kindly affection and the high-souled courage that made of that humble cottage a home of happiness and enjoyment.
Let us now turn to the west, where another and very different picture presented itself. Although certain weighty questions remained to be tried at law between the Darcys and the Hickmans, Bicknell could not advise the Knight to contest the mortgage under which the Hickmans had now taken possession of the abbey.
The reputation for patriotism and independence so fortunately acquired by that family came at a most opportune moment. In no country of Europe are the associations connected with the proprietorship of land more regarded than in Ireland; this feeling, like most others truly Irish, has the double property of being either a great blessing or a great curse, for while it can suggest a noble attachment to country, it can also, as we see it in our own day, be the fertile source of the most atrocious crime.
Had Hickman O’Reilly succeeded to the estate of the Darcys at any other moment than when popular opinion called the one a “patriot” and the other a “traitor,” the consequences would have been serious; all the disposable force, civil and military, would scarcely have been sufficient to secure possession. The thought of the “ould ancient family” deposed and exiled by the men of yesterday, would have excited a depth of feeling enough to stir the country far and near. Every trait that adorned the one, for generations, would be remembered, while the humble origin of the other would be offered as the bitterest reproach, by those who thought in embodying the picture of themselves and their fortune they were actually summing up the largest amount of obloquy and disgrace. Such is mob principle in everything! Aristocracy has no such admirers as the lowly born, just as the liberty of the press is inexpressibly dear to that part of the population who know not how to read.
When last we saw Gwynne Abbey, the scene was one of mourning, the parting hour of those whose affections clung to the old walls, and who were to leave it forever. We must now return there for a brief space under different auspices, and when Mr. Hickman O’Reilly, the high sheriff of the county, was entertaining a large and distinguished company in his new and princely residence.
It was the assize week, and the judges, as well as the leading officers of the Crown, were his guests; many of the gentry were also there,—some from indifference to whom their host might be, others from curiosity to see how the upstart, Bob Hickman, would do the honors; and there were many who felt far more at their ease in the abbey now than when they had the fears of Lady Eleanor Darcy’s quietude and coldness of manner before them.
No expense was spared to rival the style and retinue of the abbey under its former owners. O’Reilly well knew the value of first impressions in such matters, and how the report that would soon gain currency would decide the matter for or against him. So profusely, and with such disregard to money, was everything done, that, as a mere question of cost, there was no doubt that never in the Knight’s palmiest days had anything been seen more magnificent than the preparations. Luxuries, brought at an immense cost, and by contraband, from abroad; wines, of the rarest excellence, abounded at every entertainment; equipages, more splendid than any ever seen there before, appeared each morning; and troops of servants without number moved hither and thither, displaying the gorgeous liveries of the O’Reillys.
The guests were for the most part the neighboring gentry, the military, and the members of the bar; but there were others also, selected with peculiar care, and whose presence was secured at no inconsiderable pains. These were the leading “diners-out” of Dublin, and recognized “men about town,” whose names were seen on club committees, and whose word was law on all questions of society. Among them, the chief was Con Heffernan; and he now saw himself for the first time a guest at Gwynne Abbey. The invitation was made and accepted with a certain coquetting that gave it the character of a reconciliation; there were political differences to be got over, mutual recriminations to be forgotten; but as each felt, for his own reasons, not indisposed to renew friendly relations, the matter presented little difficulty, and when Mr. O’Reilly received his guest, on his arrival, with a shake of both hands, the action was meant and taken as a receipt in full for all past misunderstanding, and both had too much tact ever to go back on “bygones.”
There had been a little correspondence between the parties, the early portions of which were marked “Confidential,” and the latter “Strictly confidential and private.” This related to a request made by O’Reilly to Heffernan to entreat his influence in behalf of Lionel Darcy. Nothing could exceed the delicacy of the negotiation; for after professing that the friendship which had subsisted between his own son and young Darcy was the active motive for the request, he went on to say that in the course of certain necessary legal investigations it was discovered that young Lionel, in the unguarded carelessness of a young and extravagant man, had put his name to bills of a large amount, and even hinted that he had not stopped there, but had actually gone the length of signing his father’s name to documents for the sale of property. To obtain an appointment for him in some regiment serving in India would at once withdraw him from the likelihood of any exposure in these matters. To interest Heffernan in the affair was the object of O’Reilly’s correspondence; and Heffernan was only too glad, at so ready an opportunity, to renew their raptured relations.
Lions were not as fashionable in those days as at present; but still the party had its share in the person of Counsellor O’Halloran, the great orator of the bar, and the great speaker at public meetings, the rising patriot, who, not being deemed of importance enough to be bought, was looked on as incorruptible. He had come down special to defend O’Reilly in a record of Darcy versus Hickman,—the first case submitted for trial by Bicknell, and one which, small in itself, would yet, if determined in the Knight’s favor, form a rule of great importance respecting those that were to follow.
It was in the first burst of Hickman O’Reilly’s indignation against Government that he had secured O’Halloran as his counsel, never anticipating that any conjuncture would bring him once more into relations with the Ministry. His appointment of high sheriff, however, and his subsequent correspondence with Heffernan, ending with the invitation to the abbey, had greatly altered his sentiments, and he more than once regretted the precipitancy with which he had selected his advocate.
Whether “the Counsellor” did or did not perceive that his reception was one of less cordiality and more embarrassment than might be expected, it is not easy to say, for he was one of those persons who live too much out of themselves to betray their own feelings to the world. He was a large and well-looking man, but whose features would have been coarse in their expression were it not for the animated intelligence of his eye, and the quaint humor that played about the angles of his mouth, and added to the peculiar drollery of an accent to which Kerry had lent all its native archness. His gestures were bold, striking, and original; his manner of speaking, even in private, impressive,—from the deliberate slowness of his utterance, and the air of truthfulness sustained by every agency of look, voice, and expression. The least observant could not fail to remark in him a conscious power, a sense of his own great gifts either in argument or invective; for he was no less skilful in unravelling the tangled tissue of a knotted statement than in overwhelming his adversary with a torrent of abusive eloquence. The habits of his profession, but in particular the practice of cross-examination, had given him an immense insight into the darker recesses of the human heart, and made him master of all the subtleties and evasions of inferior capacities. This knowledge he brought with him into society, where his powers of conversation had already established for him a high repute. He abounded in anecdote, which he introduced so easily and naturally that the à propos had as much merit as the story itself. Yet with all these qualities, and in a time when the members of his profession were more than ever esteemed and courted, he himself was not received, save on sufferance, into the better society of the capital. The stamp of a “low tone,” and the assertion of democratic opinions, were two insurmountable obstacles to his social acceptance; and he was rarely, if ever, seen in those circles which arrogated to themselves the title of best. Whether it was a conscious sense of what was “in him” powerful enough to break down such barriers as these, and that, like Nelson, he felt the day would come when he would have a “Gazette of his own,” but his manner at times displayed a spirit of haughty daring and effrontery that formed a singular contrast with the slippery and insinuating softness of his nisi prius tone and gesture.
If we seem to dwell longer on this picture than the place the original occupies in our story would warrant, it is because the character is not fictitious, and there is always an interest to those who have seen the broad current of a mighty river rolling onward in its mighty strength, to stand beside the little streamlet which, first rising from the mountain, gave it origin,—to mark the first obstacles that opposed its course,—and to watch the strong impulses that moulded its destiny to overcome them.
Whatever fears Hickman O’Reilly might have felt as to how his counsel, learned in the law, would be received by the Government agent, Mr. Heffernan, were speedily allayed. The gentlemen had never met before, and yet, ere the first day went over, they were as intimate as old acquaintances, each, apparently, well pleased with the strong good sense and natural humor of the other. And so, indeed, it may be remarked in the world, that when two shrewd, far-reaching individuals are brought together, the attraction of quick intelligence and craft is sufficient to draw them into intimate relations at once. There is something wonderfully fraternal in roguery.
This was the only social difficulty O’Reilly dreaded, and happily it was soon dispelled, and the general enjoyment was unclouded by even the slightest accident. The judges were bon vivants, who enjoyed good living and good wine; he of the Common Pleas, too, was an excellent shot, and always exchanged his robes for a shooting-jacket on entering the park, and despatched hares and woodcocks as he walked along, with as much unconcern as he had done Whiteboys half an hour before. The Solicitor-General was passionately fond of hunting, and would rather any day have drawn a cover than an indictment; and so with the rest,—they seemed all of them sporting-gentlemen of wit and pleasure, who did a little business at law by way of “distraction.” Nor did O’Halloran form an exception; he was as ready as the others to snatch an interval of pleasure amid the fatigues of his laborious day. But, somehow, he contrived that no amount of business should be too much for him; and while his ruddy cheek and bright eye bespoke perfect health and renewed enjoyment, it was remarked that the lamp burned the whole night long unextinguished in his chamber, and that no morning found him ever unprepared to defend the interest of his client.
There was, as we have said, nothing to throw a damper on the general joy. Fortune was bent on dealing kindly with Mr. O’Reilly; for while he was surrounded with distinguished and delighted guests, his father, the doctor, the only one whose presence could have brought a blush to his cheek, was confined to his room by a severe cold, and unable to join the party.
The assize calendar was a long one, and the town the last in the circuit, so that the judges were in no hurry to move on; besides, Gwynne Abbey was a quarter which it was very unlikely would soon be equalled in style of living and resources. For all these several reasons the business of the law went on with an easy and measured pace, the Court opening each day at ten, and closing about three or four, when a magnificent procession of carriages and saddle-horses drew up in the main street to convey the guests back to the abbey.
While the other trials formed the daily subject of table-talk, suggesting those stories of fun, anecdote, and incident with which no other profession can enter into rivalry, the case of Darcy versus Hickman was never alluded to, and, being adroitly left last on the list for trial, could not possibly interfere with the freedom so essential to pleasant intercourse.
The day fixed on for this record was a Saturday. It was positively the last day the judges could remain, and having accepted an engagement to a distant part of the country for that very day at dinner, the Court was to sit early, and there being no other cause for trial, it was supposed the cause would be concluded in time to permit their departure. Up to this morning the high sheriff had never omitted, as in duty bound, to accompany the judges to the court-house, displaying in the number and splendor of his equipages a costliness and magnificence that excited the wonder of the assembled gentry. On this day, however, he deemed it would be more delicate on his part to be absent, as the matter in litigation so nearly concerned himself. And half seriously and half in jest he made his apologies to the learned baron who was to try the cause, and begged for permission to remain at the abbey. The request was most natural, and at once acceded to; and although Heffer-nan had expressed the greatest desire to hear the Counsellor, he determined to pass the morning, at least, with O’Reilly, and endeavor afterwards to be in time for the address to the jury.
At last the procession moved off; several country gentlemen, who had come over to breakfast, joining the party, and making the cavalcade, as it entered the town, a very imposing body. It was the market-day, too; and thus the square in front of the court-house was crowded with a frieze-coated and red-cloaked population, earnestly gesticulating and discussing the approaching trial, for to the Irish peasant the excitement of a law process has the most intense and fascinating interest. All the ordinary traffic of the day was either neglected or carelessly performed, in the anxiety to see those who dispensed the dread forms of justice, but more particularly to obtain a sight of the young “Counsellor,” who for the first time had appeared on this circuit, but whose name as a patriot and an orator was widely renowned.
“Here he comes! Here he comes! Make way there!” went from mouth to mouth, as O’Halloran, who had entered the inn for a moment, now issued forth in wig and gown, and carrying a heavily laden bag in his hand. The crowd opened for him respectfully and in dead silence, and then a hearty cheer burst forth, that echoed through the wide square, and was taken up by hundreds of voices in the neighboring streets.
It needed not the reverend companionship of Father John M’Enerty, the parish priest of Curraghglass, who walked at his side, to secure him this hearty burst of welcome, although of a truth the circumstance had its merit also, and many favorable comments were passed upon O’Halloran for the familiar way he leaned on the priest’s arm, and the kindly intelligence that subsisted between them.
If anything could have added to the pleasure of the assembled crowd at the instant, it was an announcement by Father John, who, turning round on the steps of the courthouse, informed them in a kind of confidential whisper that was heard over the square, that “if they were good boys, and did n’t make any disturbance in the town,” the Counsellor would give them a speech when the trial was over.
The most deafening shout of applause followed this declaration, and whatever interest the questions of law had possessed for them before was now merged in the higher anxiety to hear the great Counsellor himself discuss the “veto,” that long-agitated question each had taught himself to believe of nearest importance to himself.
“When last I visited this town,” said Bicknell to the senior counsel employed in the Knight’s behalf, “I witnessed a very different scene. Then we had triumphal arches, and bonfire illuminations, and addresses. It was young Darcy’s birthday, and a more enthusiastic reception it is impossible to conceive than he met in these very streets from these very people.”
“There is only one species of interest felt for dethroned monarchs,” said the other, caustically,—“how they bear their misfortunes.”
“The man you see yonder waving his hat to young O’Reilly was one of a deputation to congratulate the heir of Gwynne Abbey! I remember him well,—his name is Mitchell.”
“I hope not the same I see upon our jury-list here,” said the Counsellor, as he unfolded a written paper, and perused it attentively.
“The same man; he holds his house under the Darcys, and has received many and deep favors at their hands.”
“So much the worse, if we should find him in the jury-box. But have we any chance of young Darcy yet? Do you give up all hope of his arrival?”
“The last tidings I received from my clerk were, that he was to follow him down to Plymouth by that night’s mail, and still hoped to be in time to catch him ere the transport sailed.”
“What a rash and reckless fellow he must be, that would leave a country where he has such interests at stake!”
“If he felt that a point of honor or duty was involved, I don’t believe he ‘d sacrifice a jot of either to gain this cause, and I ‘m certain that some such plea has been made use of on the present occasion.”
“How they cheer! What’s the source of their enthusiasm at this moment? There it goes, that carriage with the green liveries and the Irish motto round the crest. Look at O’Halloran, too! how he shakes hands with the townsfolk; canvassing for a verdict already! Now, Bicknell, let us move on; but, for my part, I feel our cause is decided outside the court-house. If I ‘m not very much mistaken, we are about to have an era of ‘popular justice’ in Ireland, and our enemies could not wish us worse luck.”
CHAPTER IV. A SCENE AT THE ASSIZES
Although Mr. Hickman O’Reilly affected an easy unconcern regarding the issue of the trial, he received during the morning more than one despatch from the court-house narrating its progress. They were brief but significant; and when Hefferuan, with his own tact, inquired if the news were satisfactory, the reply was made by putting into his hands a slip of paper with a few words written in pencil: “They are beaten,-the verdict is certain.”
“I concluded,” said Heffernan, as he handed back the paper, “that the case was not deemed by you a very doubtful matter.”
“Neither doubtful nor important,” said Hickman, calmly; “it was an effort, in all probability suggested by some crafty lawyer, to break several leases on the ground of forgery in the signatures. I am sure nothing short of Mr. Darcy’s great difficulties would ever have permitted him to approve of such a proceeding.”
“The shipwrecked sailor will cling to a hen-coop,” said Heffernan. “By the way, where are these Darcys? What has become of them?”
“Living in Wales, or in Scotland, some say.”
“Are they utterly ruined?”
“Utterly, irretrievably. A course of extravagance maintained for years at a rate of about double his income, loans obtained at any sacrifice, sales of property effected without regard to loss, have overwhelmed him; and the worst of it is, the little remnant of fortune left is likely to be squandered in vain attempts to recover at law what he has lost by recklessness.”
Heffernan walked on for some moments in silence, and, as if pondering over Hickman’s words, repeated several times, half aloud: “No doubt of it,—no doubt of it.” Then added, in a louder tone: “The whole history of this family, Mr. O’Reilly, is a striking confirmation of a remark I heard made, a few days since, by a distinguished individual,—to you I may say it was Lord Cornwallis. ‘Heffernan,’ said he, ‘this country is in a state of rapid transition; everything progresses but the old gentry of the land; they alone seem rooted to ancient prejudices, and fast confirmed in bygone barbarisms.’ I ventured to ask him if he could suggest a remedy for the evil, and I ‘ll never forget the tone with which he whispered in my ear, ‘Yes; supersede them!’ And that, sir,” said Heffernan, laying his hand confidentially on O’Reilly’s arm,—“that is and must be the future policy regarding Ireland.”
Mr. Heffernan did not permit himself to risk the success of his stroke by a word more, nor did he even dare to cast a look at his companion and watch how his spell was working. As the marksman feels when he has shot his bolt that no after-thought can amend the aim, so did he wait quietly for the result, without a single effort on his part. “The remark is a new one to me,” said O’Reilly, at length; “but so completely does it accord with my own sentiments, I feel as if I either had or might have made it myself. The old school you speak of were little calculated to advance the prosperity of the country; the attachment of the people to them was fast wearing out.”
“Nay,” interposed Heffernan, “it was that very same attachment, that rude remnant of feudalism, made the greatest barrier against improvement. The law of the land was powerless in comparison with the obligations of this clanship. It is time, full time, that the people should become English in feeling, as they are in law and in language; and to make them so, the first step is, to work the reformation in the gentry. Now, at the hazard of a liberty which you may deem an impertinence, I will tell you frankly, Mr. O’Reilly, that you, you yourself, are admirably calculated to lead the van of this great movement. It is all very natural, and perhaps very just, that in a moment of chagrin with a minister or his party, a man should feel indignant, and, although acting under a misconception, throw himself into a direct opposition; yet a little reflection will show that such a line involves a false position. Popularity with the masses could never recompense a man like you for the loss of that higher esteem you must sacrifice for it; the devoirs of your station impose a very different class of duties from what this false patriotism suggests; besides, if from indignation—a causeless indignation I am ready to prove it—you separate yourself from the Government, you are virtually suffering your own momentary anger to decide the whole question of your son’s career. You are shutting the door of advancement against a young man with every adventitious aid of fortune in his favor; handsome, accomplished, wealthy,-what limit need there be to his ambition? And finally, some fellow, like our friend the Counsellor, without family, friends, or fortune, but with lungs of leather and a ready tongue, will beat you hollow in the race, and secure a wider influence over the mass of the people than a hundred gentlemen like you. You will deem it, probably, enough to spend ten or fifteen thousand on a contested election, and to give a vote for your party in Parliament; he, on the other hand, will write letters, draw up petitions, frame societies, meetings, resolutions, and make speeches, every word of which will sink deeply into the hearts of men whose feelings are his own. You, and others in your station, will be little better than tools in his hands; and powerful as you think yourselves to-day, with your broad acres and your cottier freeholders, the time may come when these men will be less at your bidding than his, and for this simple reason,—the man of nothing will always be ready to bid higher for mob support than he who has a fortune to lose.”
“You have put a very strong case,” said O’Reilly; “perhaps I should think it stronger, if I had not heard most of the arguments before, from yourself, and know by this time how their application to me has not sustained your prophecy.”
“I am ready to discuss that with you, too,” said Heffer-nan. “I know how it all happened: had I been with you the day you dined with Castlereagh, the misunderstanding never could have occurred; but there was a fatality in it all. Come,” said he, familiarly, and he slipped his arm, as he spoke, within O’Reilly’s, “I am the worst diplomatist in the world, and I fear I never should have risen to high rank in the distinguished corps of engineers if such had been my destination. I can lay down the parallels and the trenches patiently enough, I can even bring up my artillery and my battering-train, but, hang it! somehow, I never can wait for a breach to storm through. The truth is, if it were not for a very strong feeling on the subject I have just spoken of, you never would have seen me here this day. No man is happier or prouder to enjoy your hospitality than I am, but I acknowledge it was a higher sentiment induced me to accept your invitation. When your note reached me, I showed it to Castlereagh.
“‘What answer have you sent?’ said he.
“‘Declined, of course,’ said I.
“‘You are wrong, Heffernan,’ said his Lordship, as he took from me the note which I held ready sealed in my hand; ‘in my opinion, Heffernan, you are quite wrong.’
“‘I may be so, my Lord; but I confess to you I always act from the first impulse, and if it suggests regret afterwards, it at least saves trouble at the time.’
“‘Heffernan,’ said the Secretary, as he calmly read over the lines of your letter, ‘there are many reasons why you should go: in the first place, O’Reilly has really a fair grudge against us, and this note shows that he has the manliness to forget it. Every line of it bespeaks the gentleman, and I ‘ll not feel contented with myself until you convey to him my own sorrow for what is past, and the high sense I entertain of his character and conduct.’
“He said a great deal more; enough, if I tell you he induced me to rescind my first intention, and to become your guest; and I may say that I never followed advice the consequences of which have so thoroughly sustained my expectations.”
“This is very flattering,” said O’Reilly; “it is, indeed, more than I looked for; but, as you have been candid with me, I will be as open with you: I had already made up my mind to retire, for a season at least, from politics. My father, you know, is a very old man, and not without the prejudices that attach to his age; he was always averse to those ambitious views a public career would open, and a degree of coldness had begun to grow up between us in consequence. This estrangement is now happily at an end; and in his consenting to our present mode of life and its expenditure, he is, in reality, paying the recompense of his former opposition. I will not say what changes time may work in my opinion or my line of acting; but I will pledge myself that, if I do resume the path of public life, you are the very first man I will apprise of the intention.”
A cordial shake-hands ratified this compact; and Heffer-nan, who now saw that the fortress had capitulated, only stipulating for the honors of war, was about to add something very complimentary, when Beecham O’Reilly galloped up, with his horse splashed and covered with foam.
“Don’t you want to hear O’Halloran, Mr. Heffernan?” cried he.
“Yes, by all means.”
“Come along, then; don’t lose a moment; there’s a phaeton ready for you at the door, and if we make haste, we’ll be in good time.”
O’Reilly whispered a few words in his son’s ear, to which the other replied, aloud,—
“Oh! quite safe, perfectly safe. He was obliged to join his regiment, and sail at a moment’s notice.”
“Young Darcy, I presume?” said Heffernan, with a look of malicious intelligence. But no answer was returned, and O’Reilly continued to converse eagerly in Beecham’s ear.
“Here comes the carriage, Mr. Heffernan,” said the young man; “so slip in, and let’s be off.” And, giving his horse to a servant, he took his seat beside Heffernan, and drove off at a rapid pace towards the town.
After a quick drive of some miles, they entered the town, and had no necessity to ask if O’Halloran had begun his address to the jury. The streets which led to the square before the court-house, and the square itself, was actually crammed with country-people, of all sexes and ages; some standing with hats off, or holding their hands close to their ears, but all, in breathless silence, listening to the words of the Counsellor, which were not less audible to those without than within the building.
Nothing short of Beecham O’Reilly’s present position in the county, and the fact that the gratification they were then deriving was of his family’s procuring for them, could have enabled him to force a passage through that dense crowd, which wedged up all the approaches. As it was, he could only advance step by step, the horses and even the pole of the carriage actually forcing the way through the throng.
As they went thus slowly, the rich tones of the speaker swelled on the air with a clear, distinct, and yet so soft and even musical intonation that they fell deeply into the hearts of the listeners. He was evidently bent as much on appealing to those outside the court as to the jury, for his speech was less addressed to the legal question at issue than to the social condition of the peasantry; the all but absolutism of a landlord,—the serf-like slavery of a tenantry, dependent on the will or the caprice of the owners of the soil! With the consummate art of a rhetorician, he first drew the picture of an estate happily circumstanced, a benevolent landlord surrounded by a contented tenantry, the blessings of the poor man, “rising like the dews of the earth, and descending again in rain to refresh and fertilize the source it sprang from.” Not vaguely nor unskilfully, but with thorough knowledge, of his subject, he descanted on the condition of the peasant, his toils, his struggles against poverty and sickness borne with long-suffering and patience, from the firm trust that, even in this world, his destinies were committed to no cruel or unfeeling taskmaster. Although generally a studied plainness and even homeliness of language pervaded all he said, yet at times some bold figure, some striking and brilliant metaphor, would escape him, and then, far from soaring—as it might be suspected he had—above the comprehension of the hearers, a subdued murmur of delight would follow the words, and swelling louder and louder, burst forth at last into one great roar of applause. If a critical ear might cavil at the incompleteness or inaptitude of his similes, to the warm imagination and excited fancy of the Irish peasant they had no such blemishes.
It was at the close of a brilliant peroration on this theme, that Heffernan and Beecham O’Reilly reached the courthouse, and with difficulty forcing their way, obtained standing-room near the bar.
The orator had paused, and turning round he caught Beecham’s eye: the glance exchanged was but of a second’s duration, but, brief as it was, it did not escape Heffernan’s notice, and with a readiness he knew well how to profit by, he assumed a quiet smile, as though to say that he, too, had read its meaning. The young man blushed deeply; whatever his secret thoughts were, he felt ashamed that another should seem to know them, and in a hesitating whisper, said,—
“Perhaps my father has told you—”
A short nod from Heffernan—a gesture to imply anything or nothing—was all his reply, and Beecham went on,—
“He’s going to do it, now.”
Heffernan made no answer, but, leaning forward on the rail, settled himself to listen attentively to the speaker.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” said O’Halloran, in a low and deliberate tone, “if the only question I was interested in bringing before you this day was the cause you sit there to try, I would conclude here. Assured as I feel what your verdict will and must be, I would not add a word more, nor weaken the honest merit of your convictions by anything like an appeal to your feelings. But I cannot do this. The law of the land, in the plenitude of its liberty, throws wide the door of justice, that all may enter and seek redress for wrong, and with such evident anxiety that he who believes himself aggrieved should find no obstacle to his right, and that even he who frivolously and maliciously advances a charge against another suffers no heavier penalty for his offence than the costs of the suit. No, my Lords, for the valuable moments lost in a vexatious cause, for the public time consumed, for insult and outrage cast upon the immutable principles of right and wrong, you have nothing more severe to inflict than the costs of the action!—a pecuniary fine, seldom a heavy one, and not unfrequently to be levied upon insolvency! What encouragement to the spirit of revengeful litigation! How suggestive of injury is the system! How deplorable would it be if the temple could not be opened without the risk of its altar being desecrated! But, happily, there is a remedy—a great and noble remedy—for an evil like this. The same glorious institutions that have built up for our protection the bulwark of the law, have created another barrier against wrong,—grander, more expansive, and more enduring still; one neither founded on the variable basis of nationality or of language, nor propped by the artifices of learned, or the subtleties of crafty men; not following the changeful fortunes of a political condition, or tempered by the tone of the judgment-seat, but of all lands, of every tongue and nation and people, great, enduring, and immutable,—the law of Public Opinion. To the bar of this judgment-seat, one higher and greater than even your Lordships, I would now summon the plaintiff in this action. There is no need that I should detail the charge against him; the accusation he has brought this day is our indictment,—his allegation is his crime.”
The reader, by this time, may partake of Mr. Heffernan’s prescience, and divine what the secret intelligence between the Counsellor and Beecham portended, and that a long-meditated attack on the Knight of Gwynne, in all the relations of his public and private life, was the chief duty of Mr. O’Halloran in the action. Taking a lesson from the great and illustrious chief of a neighboring state, O’Reilly felt that Usurpation can never be successful till Legitimacy becomes odious. The “prestige” of the “old family” clung too powerfully to every class in the county to make his succession respected. His low origin was too recent, his moneyed dealings too notorious, to gain him acceptance, except on the ruins of the Darcys. The new edifice of his own fame must be erected out of the scattered and broken materials of his rival’s house. If any one was well calculated to assist in such an emergency, it was O’Halloran.
It was by—to use his own expression—“weeding the country of such men” that the field would be opened for that new class of politicians who were to issue their edicts in newspapers, and hold their parliaments in public meetings. Against exclusive or exaggerated loyalty the struggle would be violent, but not difficult; while against moderation, sound sense and character, the Counsellor well knew the victory was not so easy of attainment. He himself, therefore, had a direct personal object in this attack on the Knight of Gwynne, and gladly accepted the special retainer that secured his services.
By a series of artful devices, he so arranged his case that the Knight of Gwynne did not appear as an injured individual seeking redress against the collusive guilt of his agent and his tenantry, but as a ruined gambler, endeavoring to break the leases he had himself granted and guaranteed, and, by an act of perfidy, involve hundreds of innocent families in hopeless beggary. To the succor of these unprotected people Mr. Hickman O’Reilly was represented as coming forward, this noble act of devotion being the first pledge he had offered of what might be expected from him as the future leader of a great county.
He sketched with a masterly but diabolical ingenuity the whole career of the Knight, representing him at every stage of life as the pampered voluptuary seeking means for fresh enjoyment without a thought of the consequences; he exhibited him dispensing, not the graceful duties of hospitality, but the reckless waste of a tasteless household, to counterbalance by profusion the insolent hauteur of his wife, “that same Lady Eleanor who would not deign to associate with the wives and daughters of his neighbors!” “I know not,” cried the orator, “whether you were more crushed by his gold or by her insolence: it was time that you should weary of both. You took the wealth on trust, and the rank on guess,—what now remains of either?”
He drew a frightful picture of a suffering and poverty-enslaved tenantry, sinking fast into barbarism from hopelessness,—unhappily, no Irishman need depend upon his imagination for the sketch. He contrasted the hours of toil and sickness with the wanton spendthrift in his pleasures,—the gambler setting the fate of families on the die, reserving for his last hope the consolation that he might still betray those whom he had ruined, land that when he had dissipated the last shilling of his fortune, he still had the resource of putting his honor up to auction! “And who is there will deny that he did this?” cried O’Halloran. “Is there any man in the kingdom has not heard of his conduct in Parliament—that foul act of treachery which the justice of Heaven stigmatized by his ruin! How on the very night of the debate he was actually on his way to inflict the last wound upon his country, when the news came of his own overwhelming destruction! And, like as you have seen sometime in our unhappy land the hired informer transferred from the witness-table to the dock, this man stands now forth to answer for his own offences!
“It was full time that the rotten edifice of this feudalist gentry should fall; honor to you on whom the duty devolves to roll away the first stone!”
A slight movement in the crowd behind the bar disturbed the silence in which the Court listened to the speaker, and a murmur of disapprobation was heard, when a hand, stretched forth, threw a little slip of paper on the table before O’Halloran. It was addressed to him; and believing it came from the attorney in the cause, he paused to read it. Suddenly his features became of an ashy paleness, his lip trembled convulsively, and in a voice scarcely audible from emotion, he addressed the bench,—
“My Lords, I ask the protection of this Court. I implore your Lordships to see that an advocate, in the discharge of his duty, is not the mark of an assassin. I have just received this note—” He attempted to read it, but after a pause of a second or two, unable to utter a word, he handed the paper to the bench.
The judge perused the paper, and immediately whispered an order that the writer, or at least the bearer, of the note should be taken into custody.
“You may rest assured, sir,” said the senior judge, addressing O’Halloran, “that we will punish the offender, if he be discovered, with the utmost penalty the law permits. Mr. Sheriff, let the court be searched.”
The sub-sheriff was already, with the aid of a strong police force, engaged in the effort to discover the individual who had thus dared to interfere with the administration of justice; but all in vain. The court and the galleries were searched without eliciting anything that could lead to detection; and although several were taken up on suspicion, they were immediately afterwards liberated on being recognized as persons well known and in repute. Meanwhile the business of the trial stood still, and O’Halloran, with his arms folded, and his brows bent in a sullen frown, sat without speaking, or noticing any one around him.
The curiosity to know the exact words the paper contained was meanwhile extreme, and a thousand absurd versions gained currency; for, in the absence of all fact, invention was had recourse to. “Young Darcy is here,—he was seen this morning on the mail,—it was he himself gave the letter.” Such were among the rumors around; while Con Hefferman, coolly tapping his snuff-box, asked one of the lawyers near him, but in a voice plainly audible on either side, “I hope our friend Bagenal Daly is well; have you seen him lately?”
From that moment an indistinct murmur ran through the crowd that it was Daly had come back to “the West” to challenge the bar, and the whole bench, if necessary. Many added that there could no longer be any doubt of the fact, as Mr. Heffernan had seen and spoken to him.
Order was at last restored; but so completely had this new incident absorbed all the interest of the trial, that already the galleries began to thin, and of the great crowd that filled the body of the court, many had taken their departure. The Counsellor arose, agitated and evidently disconcerted, to finish his task: he spoke, indeed, indignantly of the late attempt to coerce the free expression of the advocate “by a brutal threat;” but the theme seemed one he felt no pleasure in dwelling upon, and he once more addressed himself to the facts of the case.
The judge charged briefly; and the jury, without retiring from the box, brought in a verdict for Hickman O’Reilly.
When the judges retired to unrobe, a messenger of the court summoned O’Halloran to their chamber. His absence was very brief; but when he returned his face was paler, and his manner more disturbed than ever, notwithstanding an evident effort to seem at ease and unconcerned. By this time Hickman O’Reilly had arrived in the town, and Heffernan was complimenting the Counsellor on the admirable display of his speech.
“I regret sincerely that the delicate nature of the position in which I stood prevented my hearing you,” said O’Reilly, shaking his hand.
“You have indeed had a great loss,” said Heffernan; “a more brilliant display I never listened to.”
“Well, sir,” interposed the little priest of Curraghglass, who, not altogether to the Counsellor’s satisfaction, had now slipped an arm inside of his, “I hope the evil admits of remedy; Mr. O’Halloran intends to address a few words to the people before he leaves the town.”
Whether it was the blank look that suddenly O’Reilly’s features assumed, or the sly malice that twinkled in Heffernan’s gray eyes, or that his own feelings suggested the course, but the Counsellor hastily whispered a few words in the priest’s ear, the only audible portion of which was the conclusion: “Be that as it may, I ‘ll not do it.”
“I ‘m ready now, Mr. O’Reilly,” said he, turning abruptly round.
“My father has gone over to say good-bye to the judges,” said Beecham; “but I’ll drive you back to the abbey,—the carriage is now at the door.”
With a few more words in a whisper to the priest, O’Halloran moved on with young O’Reilly towards the door.
“Only think, sir,” said Father John, dropping behind with Heffernan, from whose apparent intimacy with O’Halloran he augured a similarity of politics, “it is the first time the Counsellor was ever in our town, the people have been waiting since two o’clock to hear him on the ‘veto,’—sorra one of them knows what the same ‘veto’ is,—but it will be a cruel disappointment to see him leave the place without so much as saying a word.”
“Do you think a short address from me would do instead?” said Heffernan, slyly; “I know pretty well what’s doing up in Dublin.”
“Nothing could be better, sir,” said Father John, in ecstasy; “if the Counsellor would just introduce you in a few words, and say that, from great fatigue, or a sore throat, or anything that way, he deputed his friend Mr.—”
“Heffernan’s my name.”
“His friend Mr. Heffernan to state his views about the ‘veto,’—mind, it must be the ‘veto,’-you can touch on the reform in Parliament, the oppression of the penal laws, but the ‘veto’ will bring a cheer that will beat them all.”
“You had better hint the thing to the Counsellor,” said Heffernan; “I am ready whenever you want me.”
As the priest stepped forward to make the communication to O’Halloran, that gentleman, leaning on Beecham O’Reilly’s arm, had just reached the steps of the courthouse, where now a considerable police-force was stationed,—a measure possibly suggested by O’Reilly himself.
The crowd, on catching sight of the Counsellor, cheered vociferously; and, although they were not without fears that he intended to depart without speaking, many averred that he would address them from the carriage. Before Father John could make known his request, a young man, dressed in a riding-costume, burst through the line of police, and, springing up the steps, seized O’Halloran by the collar.
“I gave you a choice, sir,” said he, “and you made it;” and at the same instant, with a heavy horsewhip, struck him several times across the shoulders, and even the face. So sudden was the movement, and so violent the assault, that, although a man of great personal strength, O’Halloran had received several blows almost before he could defend himself, and when he had rallied, his adversary, though much lighter and less muscular, showed in skill, at least, he was his superior. The struggle, however, was not to end here; for the mob, now seeing their favorite champion attacked, with a savage howl of vengeance dashed forward, and the police, well aware that the youth would be torn limb from limb, formed a line in front of him with fixed bayonets. For a few moments the result was doubtful; nor was it until more than one retired into the crowd bleeding and wounded, that the mob desisted, or limited their rage to yells of vengeance.
Meanwhile the Counsellor was pulled back within the court-house by his companions, and the young man secured by two policemen,—a circumstance which went far to allay the angry tempest of the people without.
As, pale and powerless from passion, his livid cheek marked with a deep blue welt, O’Halloran sat in one of the waiting-rooms of the court, O’Reilly and his son endeavored, as well as they could, to calm down his rage; expressing, from time to time, their abhorrence of the indignity offered, and the certain penalty that awaited the offender. O’Halloran never spoke; he tried twice to utter something, but the words died away without sound, and he could only point to his cheek with a trembling finger, while his eyes glared like the red orbs of a tiger.
As they stood thus, Heffernan slipped noiselessly behind O’Reilly, and said in his ear,—
“Get him off to the abbey; your son will take care of him. I have something for yourself to hear.”
O’Reilly nodded significantly, and then, turning, said a few words in a low, persuasive tone to O’Halloran, concluding thus: “Yes, by all means, leave the whole affair in my hands. I ‘ll have no difficulty in making a bench. The town is full of my brother magistrates.”
“On every account I would recommend this course, sir,” said Heffernan, with one of those peculiarly meaning looks by which he so well knew how to assume a further insight into any circumstance than his neighbors possessed.
“I will address the people,” cried O’Halloran, breaking his long silence with a deep and passionate utterance of the words; “they shall see in me the strong evidence of the insolent oppression of that faction that rules this country; I ‘ll make the land ring with the tyranny that would stifle the voice of justice, and make the profession of the bar a forlorn hope to every man of independent feeling.”
“The people have dispersed already,” said Beecham, as he came back from the door of the court; “the square is quite empty.”
“Yes, I did that,” whispered Heffernan in O’Reilly’s ear; “I made the servant put on the Counsellor’s greatcoat, and drive rapidly off towards the abbey. The carriage is now, however, at the back entrance to the court-house; so, by all means, persuade him to return.”
“When do you propose bringing the fellow up for examination, Mr. O’Reilly?” said O’Halloran, as he arose from his seat.
“To-morrow morning. I have given orders to summon a full bench of magistrates, and the affair shall be sifted to the bottom.”
“You may depend upon that, sir,” said the Counsellor, sternly. “Now I ‘ll go back with you, Mr. Beecham O’Reilly.” So saying, he moved towards a private door of the building, where the phaeton was in waiting, and, before any attention was drawn to the spot, he was seated in the carriage, and the horses stepping out at a fast pace towards home.
“It’s not Bagenal Daly?” said O’Reilly, the very moment he saw the carriage drive off.
“No, no!” said Heffernan, smiling.
“Nor the young Darcy,—the captain?”
“Nor him either. It’s a young fellow we have been seeking for in vain the last month. His name is Forester.”
“Not Lord Castlereagh’s Forester?”
“The very man. You may have met him here as Darcy’s guest?”
O’Reilly nodded.
“What makes the affair worse is that the relationship with Castlereagh will be taken up as a party matter by O’Halloran’s friends in the press; they will see a Castle plot, where, in reality, there is nothing to blame save the rash folly of a hot-headed boy.”
“What is to be done?” said O’Reilly, putting his hand to his forehead, in his embarrassment to think of some escape from the difficulty.
“I see but one safe issue,—always enough to any question, if men have resolution to adopt it.”
“Let me hear what you counsel,” said O’Reilly, as he cast a searching glance at his astute companion.
“Get him off as fast as you can.”
“O’Halloran! You mistake him, Mr. Heffernan; he’ll prosecute the business to the end.”
“I’m speaking of Forester,” said Heffernan, dryly; “it is his absence is the important matter at this moment.”
“I confess I am myself unable to appreciate your view of the case,” said O’Reilly, with a cunning smile; “the policy is a new one to me which teaches that a magistrate should favor the escape of a prisoner who has just insulted one of his own friends.”
“I may be able to explain my meaning to your satisfaction,” said Heffernan, as, taking O’Reilly’s arm, he spoke for some time in a low but earnest manner. “Yes,” said he, aloud, “your son Beecham was the object of this young man’s vengeance; chance alone turned his anger on the Counsellor. His sole purpose in ‘the West’ was to provoke your son to a duel, and I know well what the result of your proceedings to-morrow would effect. Forester would not accept of his liberty on bail, nor would he enter into a security on his part to keep the peace. You will be forced, actually forced, to commit a young man of family and high position to a gaol; and what will the world say? That in seeking satisfaction for a very gross outrage on the character of his friend, a young Englishman of high family was sent to prison! In Ireland, the tale will tell badly; we always have more sympathy than censure for such offenders. In England, how many will know of his friends and connections, who never heard of your respectable bench of magistrates,—will it be very wonderful if they side with their countryman against the stranger?”
“How am I to face O’Halloran if I follow this counsel?” said O’Reilly, with a thoughtful but embarrassed air. “Then, as to Lord Castlereagh,” continued Heffernan, not heeding the question, “he will take your interference as a personal and particular favor. There never was a more favorable opportunity for you to disconnect yourself with the whole affair. The hired advocate may calumniate as he will, but he can show no collusion or connivance on your part. I may tell you, in confidence, that a more indecent and gross attack was never uttered than this same speech. I heard it, and from the beginning to the end it was a tissue of vulgarity and falsehood. Oh! I know what you would say: I complimented the speaker on his success, and all that; so I did, perfectly true, and he understood me, too,—there is no greater impertinence, perhaps, than in telling a man that you mistook his bad cider for champagne! But enough of him. You may have all the benefit, if there be such, of the treason, and yet never rub shoulders with the traitor. You see I am eager on this point, and I confess I am very much so. Your son Beecham could not have a worse enemy in the world of Club and Fashion than this same Forester; he knows and is known to everybody.”
“But I cannot perceive how the thing is to be done,” broke in O’Reilly, pettishly; “you seem to forget that O’Halloran is not the man to be put off with any lame, disjointed story.”
“Easily enough,” said Heffernan, coolly; “there is no difficulty whatever. You can blunder in the warrant of his committal; you can designate him by a wrong Christian name; call him Robert, not Richard; he may be admitted to bail, and the sum a low one. The rest follows naturally; or, better than all, let some other magistrate-you surely know more than one to aid in such a pinch—take the case upon himself, and make all the necessary errors; that’s the best plan.”
“Conolly, perhaps,” said O’Reilly, musingly; “he is a great friend of Darcy’s, and would risk something to assist this young fellow.”
“Well thought of,” cried Heffernan, slapping him on the shoulder; “just give me a line of introduction to Mr. Conolly on one of your visiting-cards, and leave the rest to me.”
“If I yield to you in this business, Mr. Heffernan,” said O’Reilly, as he sat down to write, “I assure you it is far more from my implicit confidence in your skill to conduct it safely to the end, than from any power of persuasion in your arguments. O’Halloran is a formidable enemy.”
“You never were more mistaken in your life,” said Heffernan, laughing, “such men are only noxious by the terror they inspire; they are the rattlesnakes of the world of mankind, always giving notice of their approach, and never dangerous to the prudent. He alone is to be dreaded who, tiger-like, utters no cry till his victim is in his fangs.”
There was a savage malignity in the way these words were uttered that made O’Reilly almost shudder. Heffernan saw the emotion he had unguardedly evoked, and, laughing, said,—
“Well, am I to hold over the remainder of my visit to the abbey as a debt unpaid? for I really have no fancy to let you off so cheaply.”
“But you are coming back with me, are you not?”
“Impossible! I must take charge of this foolish boy, and bring him up to Dublin; I only trust I have a vested right to come back and see you at a future day.”
O’Reilly responded to the proposition with courteous warmth; and with mutual pledges, perhaps of not dissimilar sincerity, they parted,—the one to his own home, the other to negotiate in a different quarter and in a very different spirit of diplomacy.
CHAPTER V. MR. HEFFERNAN’S COUNSELS
Mr. Heffernan possessed many worldly gifts and excellences, but upon none did he so much pride himself, in the secret recesses of his heart,—he was too cunning to indulge in more public vauntings,—as in the power he wielded over the passions of men much younger than himself. Thoroughly versed in their habits of life, tastes, and predilections, he knew how much always to concede to the warm and generous temperament of their age, and to maintain his influence over them less by the ascendancy of ability than by a more intimate acquaintance with all the follies and extravagances of fashionable existence.
Whether he had or had not been a principal actor in the scenes he related with so much humor, it was difficult to say; for he would gloss over his own personal adventures so artfully that it was not easy to discover whether the motive were cunning or delicacy. He seemed, at least, to have done everything that wildness and eccentricity had ever devised, to have known intimately every man renowned for such exploits, and to have gone through a career of extravagance and dissipation quite sufficient to make him an unimpeachable authority in every similar case. The reserve which young men feel with regard to those older than themselves was never experienced in Con Heffernan’s company; they would venture to tell him anything, well aware that, however absurd the story or embarrassing the scrape, Hefferuan was certain to cap it by another twice as extravagant in every respect.
Although Forester was by no means free from the faults of his age and class, the better principles of his nature had received no severe or lasting injury, and his estimation for Heffernan proceeded from a very different view of his character from that which we have just alluded to. He knew him to be the tried and trusted agent of his cousin, Lord Castlereagh, one for whose abilities he entertained the greatest respect; he saw him consulted and advised with on every question of difficulty, his opinions asked, his suggestions followed; and if, occasionally, the policy was somewhat tortuous, he was taught to believe that the course of politics, like that “of true love, never did run smooth.” In this way, then, did he learn to look up to Heffernan, who was too shrewd a judge of motives to risk a greater ascendancy by any hazardous appeal to the weaker points of his character.
Fortune could not have presented a more welcome visitor to Forester’s eyes than Heffernau, as he entered the room of the inn where the youth had been conducted by the sergeant of police, and where he sat bewildered by the difficulties in which his own rashness had involved him. The first moments of meeting were occupied by a perfect shower of questions, as to how Heffernan came to be in that quarter of the world, when he had arrived, and with whom he was staying. All questions which Heffernan answered by the laughing subterfuge of saying, “Your good genius, I suppose, sent me to get you out of your scrape; and fortunately I am able to do so. But what in the name of everything ridiculous could have induced you to insult this man, O’Halloran? You ought to have known that men like him cannot fight; they would be made riddles of if they once consented to back by personal daring the insolence of their tongues. They set out by establishing for themselves a kind of outlawry from honor, they acknowledge no debts within the jurisdiction of that court, otherwise they would soon be bankrupt.”
“They should be treated like all others without the pale of law, then,” said Forester, indignantly.
“Or, like Sackville,” added Heffernan, laughing, “when they put their swords ‘on the peace establishment,’ they should put their tongues on the ‘civil list.’ Well, well, there are new discoveries made every day; some men succeed better in life by the practice of cowardice than others ever did, or ever will do, by the exercise of valor.”
“What can I do here? Is there anything serious in the difficulty?” said Forester, hurriedly; for he was in no humor to enjoy the abstract speculations in which Heffernan indulged.
“It might have been a very troublesome business,” replied Heffernan, quietly: “the judge might have issued a bench warrant against you, if he did not want your cousin to make him chief baron; and Justice Conolly might have been much more technically accurate, if he was not desirous of seeing his son in an infantry regiment. It’s all arranged now, however; there is only one point for your compliance,—you must get out of Ireland as fast as may be. O’Halloran will apply for a rule in the King’s Bench, but the proceedings will not extend to England.”
“I am indifferent where I go to,” said Forester, turning away; “and provided this foolish affair does not get abroad, I am well content.”
“Oh! as to that, you must expect your share of notoriety. O’Halloran will take care to display his martyrdom for the people! It will bring him briefs now; Heaven knows what greater rewards the future may have in store from it!”
“You heard the provocation,” said Forester, with an unsuccessful attempt to speak calmly,—“the gross and most unpardonable provocation?”
“I was present,” replied Heffernan, quietly.
“Well, what say you? Was there ever uttered an attack more false and foul? Was there ever conceived a more fiendish and malignant slander?”
“I never heard anything worse.”
“Not anything worse! No, nor ever one half so bad.”
“Well, if you like it, I will agree with you; not one half so bad. It was untrue in all its details, unmanly in spirit. But, let me add, that such philippics have no lasting effect,—they are like unskilful mines, that in their explosion only damage the contrivers. O’Reilly, who was the real deviser of this same attack, whose heart suggested, whose head invented, and whose coffers paid for it, will reap all the obloquy he hoped to heap upon another. Take myself, for instance, an old time-worn man of the world, who has lived long enough never to be sudden in my friendships or my resentments, who thinks that liking and disliking are slow processes,—well, even I was shocked, outraged at this affair; and although having no more intimacy with Darcy than the ordinary intercourse of social life, confess I could not avoid acting promptly and decisively on the subject. It was a question, perhaps, more of feeling than actual judgment,—a case in which the first impulse may generally be deemed the right one.” Here Heffernan paused, and drew himself up with an air that seemed to say, “If I am confessing to a weakness in my character, it is at least one that leans to virtue’s side.”
Forester awaited with impatience for the explanation, and, not perceiving it to come, said, “Well, what did you do in the affair?”
“My part was a very simple one,” said Heffernan; “I was Mr. O’Reilly’s guest, one of a large party, asked to meet the judges and the Attorney-General. I came in, with many others, to hear O’Halloran; but if I did, I took the liberty of not returning again. I told Mr. O’Reilly frankly that, in point of fact, the thing was false, and, as policy, it was a mistake. Party contests are all very well, they are necessary, because without them there is no banner to fight under; and the man of mock liberality to either side would take precedence of those more honest but less cautious than himself; but these things are great evils when they enlist libellous attacks on character in their train. If the courtesies of life are left at the door of our popular assemblies, they ought at least to be resumed when passing out again into the world.”
“And so you actually refused to go back to his house?” said Forester, who felt far more interested in this simple fact than in all the abstract speculation that accompanied it.
“I did so: I even begged of him to send my servant and my carriage after me; and, had it not been for your business, before this time I had been some miles on my way towards Dublin.”
Forester never spoke, but he grasped Heffernan’s hand, and shook it with earnest cordiality.
“Yes, yes,” said Heffernan, as he returned the pressure; “men can be strong partisans, anxious and eager for their own side, but there is something higher and nobler than party.” He arose as he spoke, and walked towards the window, and then, suddenly turning round, and with an apparent desire to change the theme, asked, “But how came you here? What good or evil fortune prompted you to be present at this scene?”
“I fear you must allow me to keep that a secret,” said Forester, in some confusion.
“Scarcely fair, that, my young friend,” said Heffernan, laughing, “after hearing my confession in full.”
Forester seemed to feel the force of the observation, but, uncertain how to act, he maintained a silence for several minutes.
“If the affair were altogether my own, I should not hesitate,” said he at length, “but it is not so. However, we are in confidence here, and so I will tell you. I came to this part of the country at the earnest desire of Lionel Darcy. I don’t know whether you are aware of his sudden departure for India. He had asked for leave of absence to give evidence on this trial; the application was made a few days after a memorial he sent in for a change of regiment. The demand for leave was unheeded, but he received a peremptory order to repair to Portsmouth, and take charge of a detachment under sailing-orders for India; they consisted of men belonging to the Eleventh Light Dragoons, of which he was gazetted to a troop. I was with him at Chatham when the letter reached him, and he explained the entire difficulty to me, showing that he had no alternative, save neglecting the interest of his family, on the one hand, or refusing that offer of active service he had so urgently solicited on the other. We talked the thing over one entire night through, and at last, right or wrong, persuaded ourselves that any evidence he could give would be of comparatively little value; and that the refusal to join would be deemed a stain upon him as an officer, and probably be the cause of greater grief to the Knight himself than his absence at the trial. Poor fellow! he felt for more deeply for quitting England without saying good-bye to his family than for all the rest.”
“And so he actually sailed in the transport?” said Heffernan.
“Yes, and without time for more than a few lines to his father, and a parting request to me to come over to Ireland and be present at the trial. Whether he anticipated any attack of this kind or not, I cannot say, but he expressed the desire so strongly I half suspect as much.”
“Very cleverly done, faith!” muttered Heffernan, who seemed far more occupied with his own reflections than attending to Forester’s words; “a deep and subtle stroke, Master O’Reilly, ably planned and as ably executed.”
“I am rejoiced that Lionel escaped this scene, at all events,” said Forester.
“I must say, it was neatly done,” continued Heffernan, still following out his own train of thought; “‘Non contigit cuique,’ as the Roman says; it is not every man can take in Con Heffernan,—I did not expect Hickman O’Reilly would try it.” He leaned his head on his hand for some minutes, then said aloud, “The best thing for you will be to join your regiment.”
“I have left the army,” said Forester, with a flush, half of shame, half of anger.
“I think you were right,” replied Heffernan, calmly, while he avoided noticing the confusion in the young man’s manner. “Soldiering is no career for any man of abilities like yours; the lounging life of a barrack-yard, the mock duties of parade, the tiresome dissipations of the mess, suit small capacities and minds of mere routine. But you have better stuff in you, and, with your connections and family interest, there are higher prizes to strive for in the wheel of fortune.”
“You mistake me,” said Forester, hastily; “it was with no disparaging opinion of the service I left it. My reasons had nothing in common with such an estimate of the army.”
“There’s diplomacy, for instance,” said Heffernan, not minding the youth’s remark; “your brother has influence with the Foreign Office.”
“I have no fancy for the career.”
“Well, there are Government situations in abundance. A man must do something in our work-a-day world, if only to be companionable to those who do. Idleness begets ennui and falling in love; and although the first only wearies for the time, the latter lays its impress on all a man’s after-life, fills him with false notions of happiness, instils wrong motives for exertion, and limits the exercise of capacity to the small and valueless accomplishments that find favor beside the work-table and the piano.”
Forester received somewhat haughtily the unasked counsels of Mr. Heffernan respecting his future mode of life, nor was it improbable that he might himself have conveyed his opinion thereupon in words, had not the appearance of the waiter to prepare the table for dinner interposed a barrier.
“At what hour shall I order the horses, sir?” asked the man of Heffernan.
“Shall we say eight o’clock, or is that too early?”
“Not a minute too early for me,” said Forester; “I am longing to leave this place, where I hope never again to set foot.”
“At eight, then, let them be at the door; and whenever your cook is ready, we dine.”
CHAPTER VI. AN UNLOOKED-FOR PROMOTION
The same post that brought the Knight the tidings of his lost suit conveyed the intelligence of his son’s departure for India; and although the latter event was one over which, if in his power, he would have exercised no control, yet was it by far the more saddening of the two announcements.
Unable to apply any more consolatory counsels, his invariable reply to Lady Eleanor was, “It was a point of duty; the boy could not have done otherwise; I have too often expressed my opinion to him about the devoirs of a soldier to permit of his hesitating here. And as for our suit, Mr. Bicknell says the jury did not deliberate ten minutes on their verdict; whatever right we might have on our side, it was pretty clear we had no law. Poor Lionel is spared the pain of knowing this, at least.” He sighed heavily, and was silent. Lady Eleanor and Helen spoke not either; and except their long-drawn breathings nothing was heard in the room.
Lady Eleanor was the first to speak. “Might not Lionel’s evidence have given a very different coloring to our cause if he had been there?”
“It is hard to say. I am not aware whether we failed upon a point of fact or law. Mr. Bicknell writes like a man who felt his words were costly matters, and that he should not put his client to unnecessary expense. He limits himself to the simple announcement of the result, and that the charge of the bench was very pointedly unfavorable. He says something about a motion for a new trial, and regrets Daly’s having prevented his engaging Mr. O’Halloran, and refers us to the newspapers for detail.”
“I never heard a question of this O’Halloran,” said Lady Eleanor, “nor of Mr. Daly’s opposition to him before.”
“Nor did I, either; though, in all likelihood, if I had, I should have been of Bagenal’s mind myself. Employing such men has always appeared to me on a par with the barbarism of engaging the services of savage nations in a war against civilized ones; and the practice is defended by the very same arguments,—if they are not with you, they are against you.”
“You are right, my dear father,” said Helen, while her countenance glowed with unusual animation; “leave such allies to the enemy if he will, no good cause shall be stained by the scalping-knife and the tomahawk.”
“Quite right, my dearest child,” said he, fondly; “no defeat is so bad as such a victory.”
“And where was Mr. Daly? He does not seem to have been at the trial?”
“No; it would appear as if he were detained by some pressing necessity in Dublin. This letter is in his handwriting; let us see what he says.”
Before the Knight could execute his intention, old Tate appeared at the door, and announced the name of Mr. Dempsey.
“You must present our compliments,” said Darcy, hastily, “and say that a very particular engagement will prevent our having the pleasure of receiving his visit this evening.”
“This is really intolerable,” said Lady Eleanor, who, never much disposed to look favorably on that gentleman, felt his present appearance anything but agreeable.
“You hear what your master says,” said Helen to the old man, who, never having in his whole life received a similar order, felt proportionately astonished and confused.
“Tell Mr. Dempsey we are very sorry; but—”
“For all that, he won’t be denied,” said Paul, himself finishing the sentence, while, passing unceremoniously in front of Tate, he walked boldly into the middle of the room. His face was flushed, his forehead covered with perspiration, and his clothes, stained with dust, showed that he had come off a very long and fast walk. He wiped his forehead with a flaring cotton handkerchief, and then, with a long-drawn puff, threw himself back into an arm-chair.
There was something so actually comic in the cool assurance of the little man, that Darcy lost all sense of annoyance at the interruption, while he surveyed him and enjoyed the dignified coolness of Lady Eleanor’s reception.
“That’s the devil’s own bit of a road,” said Paul, as he fanned himself with a music-book, “between this and Coleraine. Whenever it ‘s not going up a hill, it’s down one. Do you ever walk that way, ma’am?”
“Very seldom indeed, sir.”
“Faith, and I ‘d wager, when you do, that it gives you a pain just here below the calf of the leg, and a stitch in the small of the back.”
Lady Eleanor took no notice of this remark, but addressed some observation to Helen, at which the young girl smiled, and said, in a whisper,—
“Oh, he will not stay long.”
“I am afraid, Mr. Dempsey,” said the Knight, “that. I must be uncourteous enough to say that we are unprepared for a visitor this evening. Some letters of importance have just arrived; and as they will demand all our attention, you will, I am sure, excuse the frankness of my telling you that we desire to be alone.”
“So you shall in a few minutes more,” said Paul, coolly. “Let me have a glass of sherry and water, or, if wine is not convenient, ditto of brandy, and I ‘m off. I did n’t come to stop. It was a letter that you forgot at the post-office, marked ‘with speed,’ on the outside, that brought me here; for I was spending a few days at Coleraine with old Hewson.”
The kindness of this thoughtful act at once eradicated every memory of the vulgarity that accompanied it; and as the Knight took the letter from his hands, he hastened to apologize for what he said by adding his thanks for the service.
“I offered a fellow a shilling to bring it, but being harvest-time he wouldn’t come,” said Dempsey. “Phew! what a state the roads are in! dust up to your ankles!”
“Come now, pray help yourself to some wine and water,” said the Knight; “and while you do so, I ‘ll ask permission to open my letter.”
“There ‘s a short cut down by Port-na-happle mill, they tell me, ma’am,” said Dempsey, who now found a much more complaisant listener than at first; “but, to tell you the truth, I don’t think it would suit you or me; there are stone walls to climb over and ditches to cross. Miss Helen, there, might get over them, she has a kind of a thoroughbred stride of her own, but fencing destroys me outright.”
“It was a very great politeness to think of bringing us the letter, and I trust your fatigues will not be injurious to you,” said Lady Eleanor, smiling faintly.
“Worse than the damage to a pair of very old shoes, ma’am, I don’t anticipate; I begin to suspect they’ve taken their last walk this evening.”
While Mr. Dempsey contemplated the coverings of his feet with a very sad expression, the Knight continued to read the letter he held in his hand with an air of extreme intentness.
“Eleanor, my dear,” said he, as he retired into the deep recess of a window, “come here for a moment.”
“I guessed there would be something of consequence in that,” said Dempsey, with a sly glance from Helen to the two figures beside the window. “The envelope was a thin one, and I read ‘War Office’ in the corner of the inside cover.”
Not heeding the delicacy of this announcement, but only thinking of the fact, which she at once connected with Lionel’s fortunes, Helen turned an anxious and searching glance towards the window; but the Knight and Lady Eleanor had entered a small room adjoining, and were already concealed from view.
“Was he ever in the militia, miss?” asked Dempsey, with a gesture of his thumb to indicate of whom he spoke.
“I believe not,” said Helen, smiling at the pertinacity of his curiosity.
“Well, well,” resumed Dempsey, with a sigh, “I would not wish him a hotter march than I had this day, and little notion I had of the same tramp only ten minutes before. I was reading the ‘Saunders’ of Tuesday last, with an account of that business done at Mayo between O’Halloran and the young officer-you know what I mean?”
“No, I have not heard it; pray tell me,” said she, with an eagerness very different from her former manner.
“It was a horsewhipping, miss, that a young fellow in the Guards gave O’Halloran, just as he was coming out of court; something the Counsellor said about somebody in the trial,—names never stay in my head, but I remember it was a great trial at the Westport assizes, and that O’Halloran came down special, and faith, so did the young captain too; and if the lawyer laid it on very heavily within the court, the red-coat made up for it outside. But I believe I have the paper in my pocket, and, if you like, I’ll read it out for you.”
“Pray do,” said Helen, whose anxiety was now intense.
“Well, here goes,” said Mr. Dempsey; “but with your permission I ‘ll just wet my lips again. That ‘s elegant sherry!”
Having sipped and tasted often enough to try the young lady’s patience to its last limit, he unfolded the paper, and read aloud,—
“‘When Counsellor O’Halloran had concluded his eloquent speech in the trial of Darcy v. Hickman,—for a full report of which see our early columns,—a young gentleman, pushing his way through the circle of congratulating friends, accosted him with the most insulting and opprobrious epithets, and failing to elicit from the learned gentleman a reciprocity,’-that means, miss, that O’Halloran did n’t show fight,—‘struck him repeatedly across the shoulders, and even the face, with a horsewhip. He was immediately committed under a bench warrant, but was liberated almost at once. Perhaps our readers may understand these proceedings more clearly when we inform them that Captain Forester, the aggressor in this case, is a near relative of our Irish Secretary, Lord Castlereagh.’ That ‘s very neatly put, miss, isn’t it?” said Mr. Dempsey, with a sly twinkle of the eye; “it’s as much as to say that the Castle chaps may do what they please. But it won’t end there, depend upon it; the Counsellor will see it out.”
Helen paid little attention to the observation, for, having taken up the paper as Mr. Dempsey laid it down, she was deeply engaged in the report of the trial and O’Halloran’s speech.
“Wasn’t that a touching-up the old Knight of Gwynne got?” said Dempsey, as, with his glass to his eye, he peered over her shoulder at the newspaper. “Faith, O’Halloran flayed him alive! He ‘s the boy can do it!”
Helen scarce seemed to breathe, as, with a heart almost bursting with indignant anger, she read the lines before her.
“Strike him!” cried she, at length, unable longer to control the passion that worked within her; “had he trampled him beneath his feet, it had not been too much?”
The little man started, and stared with amazement at the young girl, as, with flashing eyes and flushed cheek, she arose from her seat, and, tearing the paper into fragments, stamped upon them with her foot.
“Blood alive, miss, don’t destroy the paper! I only got a loan of it from Mrs. Kennedy, of the Post-office; she slipped it out of the cover, though it was addressed to Lord O’Neil. Oh dear! oh dear! it’s a nice article now!”
These words were uttered in the very depth of despair, as, kneeling down on the carpet, Mr. Dempsey attempted to collect and arrange the scattered fragments.
“It’s no use in life! Here’s the Widow Wallace’s pills in the middle of the Counsellor’s speech! and the last day’s drawing of the lottery mixed up with that elegant account of old Darcy’s—”
A hand which, if of the gentlest mould, now made a gesture to enforce silence, arrested Mr. Dempsey’s words, and at the same moment the Knight entered with Lady Eleanor. Darcy started as he gazed on the excited looks and the air of defiance of his daughter, and for a second a deep flush suffused his features, as with an angry frown he asked of Dempsey, “What does this mean, sir?”
“D-n me if I know what it means!” exclaimed Paul, in utter despair at the confusion of his own faculties. “My brain is in a whirl.”
“It was a little political dispute between Mr. Dempsey and myself, sir,” said Helen, with a faint smile. “He was reading for me an article from the newspaper, whose views were so very opposite to mine, and his advocacy of them so very animated, that—in short, we both became warm.”
“Yes, that’s it,” cried Dempsey, glad to accept any explanation of a case in which he had no precise idea wherein lay the difficulty,—“that’s it; I ‘ll take my oath it was.”
“He is a fierce Unionist,” said Helen, speaking rapidly to cover her increasing confusion, “and has all the conventional cant by heart, ‘old-fashioned opinions,’ ‘musty prejudices,’ and so on.”
“I did not suspect you were so eager a politician, my dear Helen,” said the Knight, as, half chidingly, he threw his eyes towards the scattered fragments of the torn newspaper.
The young girl blushed till her neck became crimson: shame, at the imputation of having so far given way to passion; sorrow, at the reproof, whose injustice she did not dare to expose; and regret, at the necessity of dissimulation, all overwhelming her at the same moment.
“I am not angry, my sweet girl,” said the Knight, as he drew his arm around her, and spoke in a low, fond accent. “I may be sorry—sincerely sorry—at the social condition that has suffered political feeling to approach our homes and our firesides, and thus agitate hearts as gentle as yours by these rude themes. For your sentiments on these subjects I can scarcely be a severe critic, for I believe they are all my own.”
“Let us forget it all,” said Helen, eagerly; for she saw-that Mr. Dempsey, having collected once more the torn scraps, was busy in arranging them into something like order. In fact, his senses were gradually recovering from the mystification into which they had been thrown, and he was anxious to vindicate himself before the party. “All the magnanimity, however, must not be mine,” continued she; “and until that odious paper is consumed, I ‘ll sign no treaty of peace.” So saying, and before Dempsey could interfere to prevent it, she snatched up the fragments, and threw them into the fire. “Now, Mr. Dempsey, we are friends again,” said she, laughing.
“The Lord grant it!” ejaculated Paul, who really felt no ambition for so energetic an enemy. “I ‘ll never tell a bit of news in your company again, so long as my name is Paul Dempsey. Every officer of the Guards may horsewhip the Irish bar—I was forgetting—not a syllable more.”
The Knight, fortunately, did not hear the last few words, for he was busily engaged in reading the letter he still held in his hands; at length he said,—
“Mr. Dempsey has conferred one great favor on us by bringing us this letter; and as its contents are of a nature not to admit of any delay—”
“He will increase the obligation by taking his leave,” added Paul, rising, and, for once in his life, really well pleased at an opportunity of retiring.
“I did not say that,” said Darcy, smiling.
“No, no, Mr. Dempsey,” added Lady Eleanor, with more than her wonted cordiality; “you will, I hope, remain for tea.”
“No, ma’am, I thank you; I have a little engagement,—I made a promise. If I get safe out of the house without some infernal blunder or other, it ‘s only the mercy of Providence.” And with this burst of honest feeling, Paul snatched up his hat, and without waiting for the ceremony of leave-taking, rushed out of the room, and was soon seen crossing the wide common at a brisk pace.
“Our little friend has lost his reason,” said the Knight, laughing. “What have you been doing to him, Helen?”
A gesture to express innocence of all interference was the only reply, and the party became suddenly silent.
“Has Helen seen that letter?” said Lady Eleanor, faintly, and Darcy handed the epistle to his daughter. “Read it aloud, my dear,” continued Lady Eleanor; “for, up to this, my impressions are so confused, I know not which is reality, which mere apprehension.”
Helen’s eyes glanced to the top of the letter, and saw the words “War Office;” she then proceeded to read:—
“‘Sir,—In reply to the application made to the Commander-in-Chief of the forces in your behalf, expressing your desire for an active employment, I have the honor to inform you that his Royal Highness, having graciously taken into consideration the eminent services rendered by you in former years, and the distinguished character of that corps which, raised by your exertions, still bears your name, has desired me to convey his approval of your claim, and his desire, should a favorable opportunity present itself, of complying with your wish. I have the honor to remain, your most humble and obedient servant,
“‘Harry Greville,
“Private Secretary.”
On an enclosed slip of paper was the single line in pencil:—
“H. G. begs to intimate to Colonel Darcy the propriety of attending the next levee of H. R. H., which will take place on the 14th.”
“Now, you, who read riddles, my dearest Helen, explain this one to us. I made no application of the kind alluded to, nor am I aware of any one having ever done so for me. The thought never once occurred to me, that his Majesty or his Royal Highness would accept the services of an old and shattered hulk, while many a glorious three-decker lies ready to be launched from the stocks. I could not have presumed to ask such a favor, nor do I well know how to acknowledge it.”
“But is there anything so very strange,” said Helen, proudly, “that those highly placed by station should be as highly gifted by nature, and that his Royal Highness, having heard of your unmerited calumnies, should have seen that this was the fitting moment to remember the services you have rendered the Crown? I have heard that there are several posts of high trust and honor conferred on those who, like yourself, have won distinction in the service.”
“Helen is right,” said Lady Eleanor, drawing a long breath, and as if released of a weighty load of doubt and uncertainty; “this is the real explanation; the phrases of official life may give it another coloring to our eyes, but such, I feel assured, is the true solution.”
“I should like to think it so,” said Darcy, feelingly; “it would be a great source of pride to me at this moment, when my fortunes are lower than ever they were,—lower than ever I anticipated they might be,—to know that my benefactor was the Monarch. In any case I must lose no time in acknowledging this mark of favor. It is now the 4th of the month; to be in London by the 14th, I should leave this to-morrow.”
“It is better to do so,” said Lady Eleanor, with an utterance from which a great effort had banished all agitation; “Helen and I are safe and well here, and as happy as we can be when away from you and Lionel.”
“Poor Lionel!” said the Knight, tenderly; “what good news for him it would be were they to give me some staff appointment,—I might have him near us. Come, Eleanor,” added he, with more gayety of manner, “I feel a kind of presentiment of good tidings. But we are forgetting Bagenal Daly all this time; perhaps this letter of his may throw some light on the matter.”
Darcy now broke the seal of Daly’s note, which, even for him, was one of the briefest. This was so far fortunate, since his writing was in his very worst style, blotted and half erased in many places, scarcely legible anywhere. It was only by assembling a “committee of the whole house” that the Darcys were enabled to decipher even a portion of this unhappy document. As well as it could be rendered, it ran somewhat thus:—
“The verdict is against us; old Bretson never forgave you carrying away the medal from him in Trinity some fifty years back; he charged dead against you; I always said he would. Summum jus, summa injuria—The Chief Justice—the greatest wrong! and the jury the fellows who lived under you, in your own town, and their fathers and grandfathers! at least, as many of the rascals as had such.—Never mind, Bicknell has moved for a new trial; they have gained the ‘Habere’ this time, and so has O’Halloran—you heard of the thrashing—”
Here two tremendous patches of ink left some words that followed quite unreadable.
“What can this mean?” said Darcy, repeating the passage over three or four times, while Helen made no effort to enlighten him in the difficulty. Battled in all his attempts, he read on: “‘I saw him in his way through Dublin last night,’ Who can he possibly mean?” said Darcy, laying down the letter, and pondering for several minutes.
“O’Halloran, perhaps,” said Lady Eleanor, in vain seeking a better elucidation.
“Oh, not him, of course!” cried Darcy; “he goes on to say, that ‘he is a devilish high-spirited young fellow, and for an Englishman a warm-blooded animal.’ Really this is too provoking; at such a time as this he might have taken pains to be a little clearer,” exclaimed Darcy.
The letter concluded with some mysterious hints about intelligence that a few days might disclose, but from what quarter or on what subject nothing was said, and it was actually with a sense of relief Darcy read the words, “Yours ever, Bagenal Daly,” at the foot of the letter, and thus spared himself the torment of further doubts and guesses.
Helen was restrained from at once conveying the solution of the mystery by recollecting the energy she had displayed in her scene with Mr. Dempsey, and of which the shame still lingered on her flushed cheek.
“He adds something here about writing by the next post,” said Lady Eleanor.
“But before that arrives I shall be away,” said the Knight; and the train of thought thus evoked soon erased all memory of other matters. And now the little group gathered together to discuss the coming journey, and talk over all the plans by which anxiety was to be beguiled and hope cherished till they met again.
“Miss Daly will not be a very importunate visitor,” said Lady Eleanor, dryly, “judging at least from the past; she has made one call here since we came, and then only to leave her card.”
“And if Helen does not cultivate a more conciliating manner, I scarce think that Mr. Dempsey will venture on coming either,” said the Knight, laughing.
“I can readily forgive all the neglect,” said Helen, haughtily, “in compensation for the tranquillity.”
“And yet, my dear Helen,” said Darcy, “there is a danger in that same compact. We should watch carefully to see whether, in the isolation of a life apart from others, we are not really indulging the most refined selfishness, and dignifying with the name of philosophy a solitude we love for the indulgence of our own egotism. If we are to have our hearts stirred and our sympathies strongly moved, let the themes be great ones, but above all things let us avoid magnifying the petty incidents of daily occurrence into much consequence: this is what the life of monasteries and convents teaches, and a worse lesson there need not be.”
Darcy spoke with more than usual seriousness, for he had observed some time past how Helen had imbibed much of Lady Eleanor’s distance towards her humble neighbors, and was disposed to retain a stronger memory of their failings in manner than of their better and heartier traits of character.
The young girl felt the remark less as a reproof than a warning, and said,—
“I will not forget it.”
CHAPTER VII. A PARTING INTERVIEW
When Heffernan, with his charge, Forester, reached Dublin, he drove straight to Castlereagh’s house, affectedly to place the young man under the protection of his distinguished relative, but in reality burning with eager impatience to recount his last stroke of address, and to display the cunning artifice by which he had embroiled O’Reilly with the great popular leader. Mr. Heffernan had a more than ordinary desire to exhibit his skill on this occasion; he was still smarting under the conscious sense of having been duped by O’Reilly, and could not rest tranquilly until revenged. Under the mask of a most benevolent purpose, O’Reilly had induced Heffernan to procure Lionel Darcy an appointment to a regiment in India. Heffernan undertook the task, not, indeed, moved by any kindliness of feeling towards the youth, but as a means of reopening once more negotiations with O’Reilly; and now to discover that he had interested himself simply to withdraw a troublesome witness in a suit—that he had been, in his own phrase, “jockeyed”—was an insult to his cleverness he could not endure.
As Heffernan and Forester drove up to the door, they perceived that a travelling-carriage, ready packed and loaded, stood in waiting, while the bustle and movement of servants indicated a hurried departure.
“What’s the matter, Hutton?” asked Heffernan of the valet who appeared at the moment; “is his Lordship at home?”
“Yes, sir, in the drawing-room; but my Lord is just leaving for England. He is now a Cabinet Minister.”
Heffernan smiled, and affected to hear the tidings with delight, while he hastily desired the servant to announce him.
The drawing-room was crowded by a strange and anomalous-looking assemblage, whose loud talking and laughing entirely prevented the announcement of Con Heffernan’s name from reaching Lord Castlereagh’s ears. Groups of personal friends come to say good-bye, deputations eager to have the last word in the ear of the departing Secretary, tradesmen begging recommendations to his successor, with here and there a disappointed suitor, earnestly imploring future consideration, were mixed up with hurrying servants, collecting the various minor articles which lay scattered through the apartment.
The time which it cost Heffernan to wedge his way through the dense crowd was not wholly profitless, since it enabled him to assume that look of cordial satisfaction at the noble Secretary’s promotion which he was so very far from really feeling. Like most men who cultivate mere cunning, he underrated all who do not place the greatest reliance upon it, and in this way conceived a very depreciating estimate of Lord Castlereagh’s ability. Knowing how deeply he had himself been trusted, and how much employed in state transactions, he speculated on a long career of political influence, and that, while his Lordship remained as Secretary, his own skill and dexterity would never be dispensed with. This pleasant illusion was now suddenly dispelled, and he saw all his speculations scattered to the wind at once; in fact, to borrow his own sagacious illustration, “he had to submit to a new deal with his hand full of trumps.”
He was still endeavoring to disentangle himself from the throng, when Lord Castlereagh’s quick eye discovered him.
“And here comes Heffernan,” cried he, laughingly; “the only man wanting to fill up the measure of congratulations. Pray, my Lord, move one step and rescue our poor friend from suffocation.”
“By Jove! my Lord, one would imagine you were the rising and not the setting sun, from all this adulating assemblage,” said Heffernan, as he shook the proffered hand of the Secretary, and held it most ostentatiously in his cordial pressure. “This was a complete surprise for me,” added he. “I only arrived this evening with Forester.”
“With Dick? Indeed! I’m very glad the truant has turned up again. Where is he?”
“He passed me on the stairs, I fancy to his room, for he muttered something about going over in the packet along with you.”
“And where have you been, Heffernan, and what doing?” asked Lord Castlereagh, with that easy smile that so well became his features.
“That I can scarcely tell you here,” said Heffernan, dropping his voice to a whisper, “though I fancy the news would interest you.” He made a motion towards the recess of a window, and Lord Castlereagh accepted the suggestion, but with an indolence and half-apathy which did not escape Heffernan’s shrewd perception. Partly piqued by this, and partly stimulated by his own personal interest in the matter, Heffernan related, with unwonted eagerness, the details of his visit to the West, narrating with all his own skill the most striking characteristics of the O’Reilly household, and endeavoring to interest his hearer by those little touches of native archness in description of which he was no mean master.
But often as they had before sufficed to amuse his Lordship, they seemed a failure now; for he listened, if not with impatience, yet with actual indifference, and seemed more than once as if about to stop the narrative by the abrupt question, “How can this possibly interest me?”
Heffernan read the expression, and felt it as plainly as though it were spoken.
“I am tedious, my Lord,” said he, whilst a slight flush colored the middle of his cheek; “perhaps I only weary you.”
“He must be a fastidious hearer who could weary of Mr. Heffernan’s company,” said his Lordship, with a smile so ambiguous that Heffernan resumed with even greater embarrassment,—
“I was about to observe, my Lord, that this same member for Mayo has become much more tractable. He evidently sees the necessity of confirming his new position, and, I am confident, with very little notice, might be con-verted into a stanch Government supporter.”
“Your old favorite theory, Heffernan,” said the Secretary, laughing; “to warm these Popish grubs into Protestant butterflies by the sunshine of kingly favor, forgetting the while that ‘the winter of their discontent’ is never far distant. But please to remember, besides, that gold mines will not last forever,—the fountain of honor will at last run dry; and if—”
“I ask pardon, my Lord,” interrupted Heffernan. “I only alluded to those favors which cost the Minister little, and the Crown still less,—that social acceptance from the Court here upon which some of your Irish friends set great store. If you could find an opportunity of suggesting something of this kind, or if your Lordship’s successor—”
“Heaven pity him!” exclaimed Lord Castlereagh. “He will have enough on his hands, without petty embarrassments of this sort. Without you have promised, Heffernan,” added he, hastily. “If you have already made any pledge, of course we must sustain your credit.”
“I, my Lord! I trust you know my discretion better than to suspect me. I merely threw out the suggestion from supposing that your Lordship’s interest in our poor concerns here might outlive your translation to a more distinguished position.”
There was a tone of covert impertinence in the accent, as well as the words, which, while Lord Castlereagh was quick enough to perceive, he was too shrewd to mark by any notice.
“And so,” said he, abruptly changing the topic, “this affair of Forester’s shortened your visit?”
“Of course. Having cut the knot, I left O’Reilly and Conolly to the tender mercies of O’Halloran, who, I perceive by to-day’s paper, has denounced his late client in round terms. Another reason, my Lord, for looking after O’Reilly at this moment. It is so easy to secure a prize deserted by her crew.”
“I wish Dick had waited a day or two,” said Lord Castlereagh, not heeding Heffernan’s concluding remark, “and then I should have been off. As it is, he would have done better to adjourn the horse-whipping sine die, His lady-mother will scarcely distinguish between the two parties in such a conflict, and probably deem the indignity pretty equally shared by both parties.”
“A very English judgment on an Irish quarrel,” observed Heffernan.
“And you yourself, Heffernan,—when are we to see you in London?”
“Heaven knows, my Lord. Sometimes I fancy that I ought not to quit my post here, even for a day; then again I begin to fear lest the new officials may see things in a different light, and that I may be thrown aside as the propagator of antiquated notions.”
“Mere modesty, Heffernan,” said Lord Castlereagh, with a look of the most comic gravity. “You ought to know by this time that no government can go on without you. You are the fly-wheel that regulates motion and perpetuates impulse to the entire machine. I ‘d venture almost to declare that you stand in the inventory of articles transmitted from one viceroy to another; and as we read of ‘one throne covered with crimson velvet, and one state couch with gilt supporters,’ so we might chance to fall upon the item of ‘one Con Heffernan, Kildare Place.’”
“In what capacity, my Lord?” said Heffernan, endeavoring to conceal his anger by a smile.
“Your gifts are too numerous for mention. They might better be summed up under the title of ‘State Judas.’”
“You forget, my Lord, that he carried the bag. Now I was never purse-bearer even to the Lord Chancellor. But I can pardon the simile, coming, as I see it does, from certain home convictions. Your Lordship was doubtless assimilating yourself to another historical character of the same period, and, would, like him, accept the iniquity, but ‘wash your hands’ of its consequences.”
“Do you hear that, my Lord?” said Lord Castlereagh, turning round, and addressing the Bishop of Kilmore. “Mr. Heffernan has discovered a parallel between my character and that of Pontius Pilate.” A look of rebuking severity from the prelate was directed towards Heffernan, who meekly said,—
“I was only reproving his Lordship for permitting me to discharge all the duties of Secretary for Ireland, and yet receive none of the emoluments.”
“But you refused office in every shape and form,” said Lord Castlereagh, hastily. “Yes, gentlemen, as the last act of my official life amongst you,”—here he raised his voice, and moved into the centre of the room,—“I desire to make this public declaration, that as often as I have solicited Mr. Heffernan to accept some situation of trust and profit under the Crown, he has as uniformly declined; not, it is needless to say, from any discrepancy in our political views, for I believe we are agreed on every point, but upon the ground of maintaining his own freedom of acting and judging.”
The declamatory tone in which he spoke these words, and the glances of quiet intelligence that were exchanged through the assembly, were in strong contrast with the forced calmness of Heffernan, who, pale and red by turns, could barely suppress the rage that worked within him; nor was it without an immense effort he could mutter a feigned expression of gratitude for his Lordship’s panegyric, while he muttered to himself,—
“You shall rue this yet!”
CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRE.
It was late in the evening as the Knight of Gwynne entered Dublin, and took up his abode for the night in an obscure inn at the north side of the city. However occupied his thoughts up to that time by the approaching event in his own fortune, he could not help feeling a sudden pang as he saw once more the well-known landmarks that reminded him of former days of happiness and triumph. Strange as it may now sound, there was a time when Irish gentlemen were proud of their native city; when they regarded its University with feelings of affectionate memory, as the scene of early efforts and ambitions, and could look on its Parliament House as the proud evidence of their national independence! Socially, too, they considered Dublin—and with reason—second to no city of Europe; for there was a period, brief but glorious, when the highest breeding of the courtier mingled with the most polished wit and refined conversation, and when the splendor of wealth, freely displayed as it was, was only inferior to the more brilliant lustre of a society richer in genius and in beauty than any capital of the world.
None had been a more favored participator in these scenes than Darcy himself: his personal gifts, added to the claims of his family and fortune, secured him early acceptance in the highest circles; and if his abilities had not won the very highest distinctions, it seemed rather from his own indifference than from their deficiency.
In those days his arrival in town was the signal for a throng of visitors to call, all eagerly asking on what day they might secure him to dine or sup, to meet this one or that. The thousand flatteries society stores up for her favorites, all awaited him. Parties whose fulfilment hung listlessly in doubt were now hastily determined on, as “Darcy has come” got whispered abroad; and many a scheme of pleasure but half planned found a ready advocacy when the prospect of obtaining him as a guest presented itself.
The consciousness of social success is a great element in the victory. Darcy had this, but without the slightest taint of vain boastfulness or egotism; his sense of his own distinction was merely sufficient to heighten his enjoyment of the world, without detracting ever so little from the manly and unassuming features of his character. It is true he endeavored, and even gave himself pains, to be an agreeable companion; but he belonged to a school and a time when conversation was cultivated as an art, and when men preferred making the dinner-table and the drawing-room the arena of their powers, to indicting verses for an “Annual,” or composing tales for a fashionable “Miscellany.”
We have said enough, perhaps, to show what Dublin was to him once. How very different it seemed to his eyes now! The season was late summer, and the city dusty and deserted,—few persons in the streets, scarcely a carriage to be seen; an air of listlessness and apathy was over everything, for it was the period when the country was just awakening after the intoxicating excitement of the Parliamentary straggle,—awakening to discover that it had been betrayed and deserted!
As soon as Darcy had taken some slight refreshment, he set out in search of Daly. His first visit was to Henrietta Street, to his own house, or rather what had been his, for it was already let, and a flaring brass-plate on the door proclaimed it the office of a fashionable solicitor. He knocked, and inquired if any one “knew where Mr. Bagenal Daly now resided;” but the name seemed perfectly unknown. He next tried Bicknell’s; but that gentleman had not returned since the circuit: he was repairing the fatigues of his profession by a week or two’s relaxation at a watering-place.
He did not like himself to call at the club, but he despatched a messenger from the inn, who brought word back that Mr. Daly had not been there for several weeks, and that his present address was unknown. Worried and annoyed, Darcy tried in turn each place where Daly had been wont to frequent, but all in vain. Some had seen him, but not lately; others suggested that he did not appear much in public on account of his moneyed difficulties; and one or two limited themselves to a cautious declaration of ignorance, with a certain assumed shrewdness, as though to say that they could tell more if they would.
It was near midnight when Darcy returned to the inn, tired and worn out by his unsuccessful search. The packet in which he was to sail for England was to leave the port early in the morning, and he sat down in the travellers’ room, exhausted and fatigued, till his chamber should be got ready for him.
The inn stood in one of the narrow streets leading out of Smithfield, and was generally resorted to by small farmers and cattle-dealers repairing to the weekly market. Of these, three or four still lingered in the public room, conning over their accounts and discussing the prices of “short-horns and black faces” with much interest, and anticipating all the possible changes the new political condition of the country might be likely to induce.
Darcy could scarcely avoid smiling as he overheard some of these speculations, wherein the prospect of a greater export trade was deemed the most certain indication of national misfortune. His attention was, however, suddenly withdrawn from the conversation by a confused murmur of voices, and the tramp of many feet in the street without The noise gradually increased, and attracted the notice of the others, and suddenly the words “Fire! fire!” repeated from mouth to mouth, explained the tumult.
As the tide of men was borne onward, the din grew louder, and at length the narrow street in front of the inn became densely crowded by a mob hurrying eagerly forward, and talking in loud, excited voices.
“They say that Newgate is on fire, sir,” said the landlord, as, hastily entering, he addressed Darcy; “but if you ‘ll come with me to the top of the house, we ‘ll soon see for ourselves.”
Darcy followed the man to the upper story, whence, by a small ladder, they obtained an exit on the roof. The night was calm and starlight, and the air was still. What a contrast—that spangled heaven in all its tranquil beauty—to the dark streets below, where, in tumultuous uproar, the commingled mass was seen by the uncertain glimmer of the lamps, few and dim as they were. Darcy could mark that the crowd consisted of the very lowest and most miserable-looking class of the capital, the dwellers in the dark alleys and purlieus of the ill-favored region. By their excited gestures and wild accents, it was clear to see how much more of pleasure than of sorrow they felt at the occasion that now roused them from their dreary garrets and damp cellars. Shouts of mad triumph and cries of menace burst from them as they went. The Knight was roused from a moody contemplation of the throng by the landlord saying aloud,—
“True enough, the jail is on fire: see, yonder, where the dark smoke is rolling up, that is Newgate.”
“But the building is of stone, almost entirely of stone, with little or no wood in its construction,” said Darcy; “I cannot imagine how it could take fire.”
“The floors, the window-frames, the rafters are of wood, sir,” said the other; “and then,” added he, with a cunning leer, “remember what the inhabitants are!”
The Knight little minded the remark, for his whole gaze was fixed on the cloud of smoke, dense and black as night, that rolled forth, as if from the ground, and soon enveloped the jail and all the surrounding buildings in darkness.
“What can that mean?” said he, in amazement.
“It means that this is no accident, sir,” said the man, shrewdly; “it’s only damp straw and soot can produce the effect you see yonder; it is done by the prisoners—see, it is increasing! and here come the fire-engines!”
As he spoke, a heavy, cavernous sound was heard rising from the street, where now a body of horse-police were seen escorting the fire-engines. The service was not without difficulty, for the mob offered every obstacle short of open resistance; and once it was discovered that the traces were cut, and considerable delay thereby occasioned.
“The smoke is spreading; see, sir, how it rolls this way, blacker and heavier than before!”
“It is but smoke, after all,” said Darcy; but although the words were uttered half contemptuously, his heart beat anxiously as the dense volume hung suspended in the air, growing each moment blacker as fresh masses arose. The cries and yells of the excited mob were now wilder and more frantic, and seemed to issue from the black, ill-omened mass that filled the atmosphere.
“That’s not smoke, sir; look yonder!” said the man, seizing Darcy’s arm, and pointing to a reddish glare that seemed trying to force a passage through the smoke, and came not from the jail, but from some building at the side or in front of it.
“There again!” cried he, “that is fire!”
The words were scarcely uttered, when a cheer burst from the mob beneath. A yell more dissonant and appalling could not have broken from demons than was that shout of exultation, as the red flame leaped up and flashed towards the sky. As the strong host of a battle will rout and scatter the weaker enemy, so did the fierce element dispel the less powerful; and now the lurid glow of a great fire lit up the air, and marked out with terrible distinctness the waving crowd that jammed up the streets,—the windows filled with terrified faces, and the very house-tops crowded by terror-stricken and distracted groups.
The scene was truly an awful one; the fire raged in some houses exactly in front of the jail, pouring with unceasing violence its flood of flame through every door and window, and now sending bright jets through the roofs, which, rent with a report like thunder, soon became one undistinguish-able mass of flame. The cries for succor, the shouts of the firemen, the screams of those not yet rescued, and the still increasing excitement of the mob, mingling their hellish yells of triumph through all the dread disaster, made up a discord the most horrible; while, ever and anon, the police and the crowd were in collision, vain efforts being made to keep the mob back from the front of the jail, whither they had fled as a refuge from the heat of the burning houses.
The fire seemed to spread, defying all the efforts of the engines. From house to house the lazy smoke was seen to issue for a moment, and then, almost immediately after, a new cry would announce that another building was in flames. Meanwhile the smoke, which in the commencement had spread from the courtyard and windows of the jail, was again perceived to thicken in the same quarter, and suddenly, as if from a preconcerted signal, it rolled out from every barred casement and loopholed aperture,—from every narrow and deep cell within the lofty walls; and the agonized yell of the prisoners burst forth at the same moment, and the air seemed to vibrate with shrieks and cries.
“Break open the jail!” resounded on every side. “Don’t let the prisoners be burned alive!” was uttered in accents whose humanity was far inferior to their menace; and, as if with one accord, a rush was made at the strongly barred gates of the dark building. The movement, although made with the full force of a mighty multitude, was in vain. In vain the stones resounded upon the thickly studded door, in vain the strength of hundreds pressed down upon the oaken barrier. They might as well have tried to force the strong masonry at either side of it!
“Climb the walls!” was now the cry; and the prisoners re-echoed the call in tones of shrieking entreaty. The mob, savage from their recent repulse at the gate, now seized the ladders employed by the firemen, and planted them against the great enclosure-wall of the jail. The police endeavored to charge, but, jammed up by the crowd, their bridles in many instances cut, their weapons wrested from them, they were almost at the mercy of the mob. Orders had been despatched for troops; but as yet they had not appeared, and the narrow streets, being actually choked up with people, would necessarily delay their progress. If there were any persons in that vast mass disposed to repel the violence of the mob, they did not dare to avow it, the odds were so fearfully on the side of the multitude.
The sentry who guarded the gate was trampled down. Some averred he was killed in the first rush upon the gate; certain it was his cap and coat were paraded on a pole, as a warning of what awaited his comrades within the jail, should they dare to fire on the people. This horrible banner was waved to and fro above the stormy multitude. Darcy had but time to mark it, when he saw the crowd open, as if cleft asunder by some giant band, and at the same instant a man rode through the open space, and, tearing down the pole, felled him who carried it to the earth by a stroke of his whip. The red glare of the burning houses made the scene distinct as daylight; but the next moment a rolling cloud of black smoke hid all from view, and left him to doubt the evidence of his eyesight.
“Did you see the horseman?” asked Darcy, in eager curiosity, for he did not dare to trust his uncorroborated sense.
“There he is!” cried the other. “I know him by a white band on his arm. See, he mounts one of the ladders!—there!—he is near the top!”
A cheer that seemed to shake the very atmosphere now rent the air, as, pressing on like soldiers to a breach, the mob approached the walls. Some shots were fired by the guard, and their effect might be noted by the more savage yells of the mob, whose exasperation was now like madness.
“The shots have told,—see!” cried the man. “Now the people are gathering in close groups, here and there.”
But Darcy’s eyes were fixed on the walls, which were already crowded with the mob, the dark figures looking like spectres as they passed and repassed through the dense canopy of smoke.
“The soldiers! the soldiers!” screamed the populace from below; and at the instant a heavy lumbering sound crept on, and the head of a cavalry squadron wheeled into the square before the jail. The remainder of the troop soon defiled; but instead of advancing, as was expected, they opened their ranks, and displayed the formidable appearance of two eight-pounders, from which the limbers were removed with lightning speed, and their mouths turned full upon the crowd. Meanwhile an infantry force was seen entering the opposite side of the square, thus showing the mob that they were taken in front and rear, no escape being open save by the small alleys which led off from the street before the prison. The military preparations took scarcely more time to effect than we have employed to relate; and now began a scene of tumult and terror the most dreadful to witness. The order to prime and load, followed by the clanking crash of four hundred muskets; the close ranks of the cavalry, as if with difficulty restrained from charging down upon them; and the lighted fuses of the artillery,—all combined to augment the momentary dread, and the shouts of vengeance so lately heard were at once changed into piercing cries for mercy. The blazing houses, from which the red fire shot up unrestrained, no longer attracted notice,—the jail itself had no interest for those whose danger was become so imminent.
An indiscriminate rush was made towards the narrow lanes for escape, and from these arose the most piercing and agonizing cries,—for while pressed down and trampled, many were trodden under foot never again to rise; others were wounded or burned by the falling timbers of the blazing buildings; and the fearful cry of “The soldiers! the soldiers!” still goaded them on by those behind.
“Look yonder,” cried Darcy’s companion, seizing him by the arm,—“look there,—near the corner of the market! See, the troops have not perceived that ladder, and there are two fellows now descending it.”
True enough. At a remote angle of the jail, not concealed from view by the smoke, stood the ladder in question.
“How slowly they move!” cried Darcy, his eyes fixed upon the figures with that strange anxiety so inseparable from the fate of all who are engaged in hazardous enterprise. “They will certainly be taken.”
“They must be wounded,” cried the other; “they seem to creep rather than step—I know the reason, they are in fetters.”
Scarcely was the explanation uttered when the ladder was seen to be violently moved as if from above, and the next moment was hurled back from the wall, on which several soldiers were now perceived firing on those below.
“They are lost!” said the Knight; “they are either captured or cut down by this time.”
“The square is cleared already,” said the other; “how quietly the troops have done their work! And the fire begins to yield to the engines.”
The square was indeed cleared; save the groups beside the fire-engines, and here and there a knot gathered around some wounded man, the space was empty, the troops having drawn off to the sides, around which they stood in double file. A dark cloud rested over the jail itself, but no longer did any smoke issue from the windows; and already the fire, its rage in part expended, in part subdued, showed signs of decline.
“If the wind was from the west,” said the landlord, “there ‘s no saying where that might have stopped this night!”
“It is a strange occurrence altogether,” said the Knight, musingly.
“Not a bit strange, sir,” replied the other, whose neighborhood made him acquainted with classes and varieties of men of whom Darcy knew nothing; “it was an attempt by the prisoners.”
“Do you think so?” asked Darcy.
“Ay, to be sure, sir; there’s scarcely a year goes over without one contrivance or another for escape. Last autumn two fellows got away by following the course of the sewers and gaining the Liffey; they must have passed two days underground, and up to their necks in water a great part of the time.”
“Ay, and besides that,” observed another,-for already some ten or twelve persons were assembled on the roof as well as Darcy and the landlord,—“they had to wade the river at the ebb-tide, when the mud is at least eight or ten feet deep.”
“How that was done, I cannot guess,” said Darcy.
“A man will do many a thing for liberty, sir,” remarked another, who was buttoned up in a frieze coat, although the night was hot and sultry; “these poor devils there were willing to risk being roasted alive for the chance of it.”
“Quite true,” said Darcy; “fellows that have a taste for breaking the law need not be supposed desirous of observing it as to their mode of death; and yet they must have been daring rascals to have made such an attempt as this.”
“Maybe you know the old song, sir,” said the other, laughing,—
“There s many a man no bolts can keep,
No chains be made to bind them,
And tho’ the fetters be heavy, and cells be deep,
He ‘ll fling them far behind them.”
“I have heard the ditty,” answered the Knight; “and if my memory serves me, the last lines run thus,—
“Though iron bolts may rust and rot,
And stone and mortar crumble,
Freney, beware! for well I wot
Your pride may have a tumble.”
“Devil a lie in that, anyhow, sir,” said the other, laughing heartily; “and an uglier tumble a man needn’t have than to slip through Tom Galvin’s fingers. But I see the fire is out now; so I ‘ll be jogging homeward. Good-night, sir.”
“Good-night,” said Darcy; and then, as the other moved away, turning to the landlord, he asked if he knew the stranger.
“No, sir,” was the reply; “he came up with some others to have a look at the fire.”
“Well, I ‘ll to my bed,” said Darcy; “let me be awakened at four o’clock. I see I shall have but a short sleep; the day is breaking already.”
CHAPTER IX. BOARDING-HOUSE CRITICISM.
It was not until after the lapse of several days that Darcy’s departure was made known to the denizens of Port Ballintray.
If the event was slow of announcement, they endeavored to compensate for the tardiness of the tidings by the freedom of their commentary on all its possible and impossible reasons. There was not a casualty, in the whole catalogue of human vicissitudes, unquoted; deaths, births, and marriages were ransacked in newspapers; all sudden and unexpected turns of fortune were well weighed, accidents and offences scanned with cunning eyes, and the various paragraphs to which editorial mysteriousness gave an equivocal interpretation were commented on with a perseverance and an ingenuity worthy of a higher theme.
It may be remarked that no class of persons are viewed more suspiciously, or excite more sharp criticism from their neighbors, than those who, with evidently narrow means, prefer retirement and estrangement from the world to mixing in the small circle of some petty locality. A hundred schemes are put in motion to ascertain by what right such superiority is asserted,—why, and on what grounds, they affect to be better than their neighbors, and so on; the only offence all the while consisting of an isolation which cannot with truth imply any such imputation.
When the Knight of Gwynne found himself by an unexpected turn of fortune condemned to a station so different from his previous life, he addressed himself at once to the difficulties of his lot; and, well aware that all reserve on his part would be set down as the cloak of some deep mystery, he affected an air of easy cordiality with such of the boarding-house party as he ever met, and endeavored, by a tone of well-assumed familiarity, to avoid all detection of the difference between him and his new associates.
It was in this spirit that he admitted Mr. Dempsey to his acquaintance, and even asked him to his cottage. In this diplomacy he met with little assistance from Lady Eleanor and his daughter; the former, from a natural coldness of manner and an instinctive horror of everything low and underbred. Helen’s perceptions of such things were just as acute, but, inheriting the gay and lively temperament of her father’s house, she better liked to laugh at the absurdities of vulgar people than indulge a mere sense of dislike to their society. Such allies were too dangerous to depend on, and hence the Knight conducted his plans unaided and unsupported.
Whether Mr. Dempsey was bought off by the flattering exception made in his favor, and that he felt an implied superiority on being deemed their advocate, he certainly assumed that position in the circle of Mrs. Fumbally’s household, and on the present occasion sustained his part with a certain mysterious demeanor that imposed on many.
“Well, he’s gone, at all events!” said a thin old lady with a green shade over a pair of greener eyes; “that can’t be denied, I hope! Went off like a shot on Tuesday morning. Sandy M’Shane brought him into Coleraine, for the Dublin coach; and, by the same token, it was an outside place he took—”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” interposed a fat little woman, with a choleric red face and a tremulous underlip,—she was an authoress in the provincial papers, and occasionally invented her English as well as her incidents,—“it was the Derry mail he went by. Archy M’Clure trod on his toe, and asked pardon for it, just to get him into conversation; but he seemed very much dejected, and wouldn’t interlocute.”
“Very strange indeed!” rejoined the lady of the shade, “because I had my information from Williams, the guard of the coach.”
“And I mine from Archy M’Clure himself.”
“And both were wrong,” interposed Paul Dempsey, triumphantly.
“It’s not very polite to tell us so, Mr. Dempsey,” said the thin old lady, bridling.
“Perhaps the politeness may equal the voracity,” said the fat lady, who was almost boiling over with wrath.
“This Gwynne wasn’t all right, depend upon it,” interposed a certain little man in powder; “I have my own suspicions about him.”
“Well, now, Mr. Dunlop, what’s your opinion? I’d like to hear it.”
“What does Mrs. M’Caudlish say?” rejoined the little gentleman, turning to the authoress,—for in the boarding-house they both presided judicially in all domestic inquisitions regarding conduct and character,—“what does Mrs. M’Caudlish say?”
“I prefer letting Mr. Dunlop expose himself before me.”
“The case is doubtful—dark—mysterious,” said Dunlop, with a solemn pause after each word.
“The more beyond my conjunctions,” said the lady. “You remember what the young gentleman says in the Latin poet, ‘Sum Davy, non sum Euripides.’”
“I ‘ll tell you my opinion, then,” said Mr. Dunlop, who was evidently mollified by the classical allusion; and with firm and solemn gesture he crossed over to where she sat, and whispered a few words in her ear.
A slight scream, and a long-drawn “Oh!” was all the answer.
“Upon my soul, I believe so,” said Mr. Dunlop, thrusting both hands into the furthest depths of his coat-pockets; “nay, more, I’ll maintain it!”
“I know what you are driving at,” said Dempsey, laughing; “you think he’s the gauger that went off with Mrs. Murdoch of Ballyquirk—”
“Mr. Dempsey! Mr. Dempsey! the ladies, sir! the ladies!” called out two or three reproving voices from the male portion of the assembly; while, as if to corroborate the justice of the appeal, the thin lady drew her shade down two inches lower, and Mr. Dunlop’s face became what painters call “of a warm tint.”
“Oh! never talk of a rope where a man’s father was hanged,” muttered Paul to himself, for he felt all the severity of his condemnation, though he knew that the point of law was against him.
“There ‘s a rule in this establishment, Mr. Dempsey,” said Mr. Dunlop, with all the gravity of a judge delivering a charge,—“a rule devised to protect the purity, the innocence,”—here the ladies held down their heads,—“the beauty—”
“Yes, sir, and I will add, the helplessness of that sex—”
“Paul ‘s right, by Jove!” hiccuped Jack Leonard, whose faculties, far immersed in the effects of strong whiskey-and-water, suddenly flashed out into momentary intelligence,—“I say he’s right! Who says the reverse?”
“Oh, Captain Leonard! oh dear, Mr. Dunlop!” screamed three or four female voices in concert, “don’t let it proceed further.”
A faint and an anxious group were gathered around the little gentleman, whose warlike indications grew stronger as pacific entreaties increased.
“He shall explain his words,” said he, with a cautious glance to see that his observation was not overheard; then, seeing that his adversary had relapsed into oblivion, he added, “he shall withdraw them;” and finally, emboldened by success, he vociferated, “or’ he shall eat them. I ‘ll teach him,” said the now triumphant victor, “that it is not in Mark Dunlop’s presence ladies are to be insulted with impunity. Let the attempt be made by whom it will,—he may be a lieutenant on half pay or on full pay!—I tell him, I don’t care a rush.”
“Of course not!” “Why would you?” and so on, were uttered in ready chorus around him; and he resumed,—
“And as for this Gwynne, or Quin, who lives up at ‘The Corvy’ yonder, for all the airs he gives himself, and his fine ladies too, my simple belief is he ‘s a Government spy!”
“Is that your opinion, sir?” said a deep and almost solemn voice; and at the same instant Miss Daly appeared at the open window. She leaned her arm on the sill, and calmly stared at the now terrified speaker, while she repeated the words, “Is that your opinion, sir?”
Before the surprise her words had excited subsided, she stood at the door of the apartment. She was dressed in her riding-habit, for she had that moment returned from an excursion along the coast.
“Mr. Dunlop,” said the lady, advancing towards him, “I never play the eavesdropper; but you spoke so loud, doubtless purposely, that nothing short of deafness could escape hearing you. You were pleased to express a belief respecting the position of a gentleman with whom I have the honor to claim some friendship.”
“I always hold myself ready, madam, to render an account to any individual of whom I express an opinion,—to himself, personally, I mean.”
“Of course you do, sir. It is a very laudable habit,” said she, dryly; “but in this case—don’t interrupt me—in the present case it cannot apply, because the person traduced is absent. Yes, sir, I said traduced.”
“Oh, madam, I must say the word would better suit one more able to sustain it. I shall take the liberty to withdraw.” And so saying, he moved towards the door; but Miss Daly interposed, and, by a gesture of her hand, in which she held a formidable horsewhip, gave a very unmistakable sign that the passage was not free.
“You ‘ll not go yet, sir. I have not done with you,” said she, in a voice every accent of which vibrated in the little man’s heart. “You affect to regret, sir, that I am not of the sex that exacts satisfaction, as it is called; but I tell you, I come of a family that never gave long scores to a debt of honor. You have presumed—in a company, certainly, where the hazard of contradiction was small—to asperse a gentleman of whom you know nothing,—not one single fact,—not one iota of his life, character, or fortune. You have dared to call him by words every letter of which would have left a welt on your shoulders if uttered in his hearing. Now, as I am certain he would pay any little debts I might have perchance forgotten in leaving a place where I had resided, so will I do likewise by him; and here, on this spot, and in this fair company, I call upon you to unsay your falsehood, or—” Here she made one step forward, with an air and gesture that made Mr. Dunlop retire with a most comic alacrity. “Don’t be afraid, sir,” continued she, laughing. “My brother, Mr. Bagenal Daly, will arrive here soon. He ‘s no new name to your ears. In any case, I promise you that whatever you find objectionable in my proceedings towards you he will be most happy to sustain. Now, sir, the hand wants four minutes to six. If the hour strike before you call yourself a wanton, gratuitous calumniator, I ‘ll flog you round the room.”
A cry of horror burst from the female portion of the assembly at a threat the utterance of which was really not less terrific than the meaning.
“Such a spectacle,” continued Miss Daly, sarcastically, “I should scruple to inflict on this fair company; but the taste that could find pleasure in witless, pointless slander may not, it is possible, dislike to see a little castigation. Now, sir, you have just one minute and a quarter.”
“I protest against this conduct, madam. I here declare—”
“Declare nothing, sir, till you have avowed yourself by your real name and character. If you cannot restrain your tongue, I ‘ll very soon convince you that its consequences are far from agreeable. Is what you have spoken false?”
“There may come a heavy reckoning for all this, madam,” said Dunlop, trembling between fear and passion.
“I ask you again, and for the last time, are your words untrue? Very well, sir. You held a commission in Germany, they say; and probably, as a military man, you may think it undignified to surrender, except on compulsion.”
With these words Miss Daly advanced towards him with a firm and determined air, while a cry of horror arose through the room, and the fairer portion intrepidly threw themselves in front of their champion, while Dempsey and the others only restrained their laughter for fear of personal consequences. Pushing fiercely on, Miss Daly was almost at his side, when the door of the room was opened, and a deep and well-known voice called out to her,—
“Maria, what the devil is all this?”
“Oh, Bagenal,” cried she, as she held out her hand, “I scarcely expected you before eight o’clock.”
“But in the name of everything ridiculous, what has happened? Were you about to horsewhip this pleasant company?”
“Only one of its members,” said Miss Daly, coolly,—“a little gentleman who has thought proper to be more lavish of his calumny than his courage. I hand him over to you now; and, faith, though I don’t think that he had any fancy for me, he ‘ll gain by the exchange! You ‘ll find him yonder,” said she, pointing to a corner where already the majority of the party were gathered together.
Miss Daly was mistaken, however, for Mr. Dunlop had made his escape during the brief interchange of greetings between the brother and sister. “Come, Bagenal,” said she, smiling, “it’s all for the best. I have given him a lesson he ‘ll not readily forget,—had you been the teacher, he might not have lived to remember it.”
“What a place for you!” said Bagenal, as he threw his eye superciliously around the apartment and its occupants; then taking her arm within his own, he led her forth, and closed the door after them.
Once more alone, Daly learned with surprise, not unmixed with sorrow, that his sister had never seen the Darcys, and save by a single call, when she left her name, had made no advances towards their acquaintance. She showed a degree of repugnance, too, to allude to the subject, and rather endeavored to dismiss it by saying shortly,—“Lady Eleanor is a fine lady, and her daughter a wit What could there be in common between us?”
“But for Darcy’s sake?”
“For his sake I stayed away,” rejoined she, hastily; “they would have thought me a bore, and perhaps have told him as much. In a word, Bagenal, I did n’t like it, and that’s enough. Neither of us were trained to put much constraint on our inclinations. I doubt if the lesson would be easily learned at our present time of life.”
Daly muttered some half-intelligible bitterness about female obstinacy and wrong-headedness, and walked slowly to and fro. “I must see Maurice at once,” said he, at length.
“That will be no easy task; he left this for Dublin on Tuesday last.”
“And has not returned? When does he come back?”
“His old butler, who brought me the news, says not for some weeks.”
“Confusion and misery!” exclaimed Daly, “was there ever anything so ill-timed! And he’s in Dublin?”
“He went thither, but there would seem some mystery about his ultimate destination; the old man binted at London.”
“London!” said he, with a heavy sigh. “It’s now the 18th, and on Saturday she sails.”
“Who sails?” asked Miss Daly, with more of eagerness than she yet exhibited.
“Oh, I forgot, Molly, I had n’t told you, I ‘m about to take a voyage,—not a very long one, but still distant enough to make me wish to say good-bye ere we separate. If God wills it, I shall be back early in the spring.”
“What new freak is this, Bagenal?” said she, almost sternly; “I thought that time and the world’s crosses might have taught you to care for quietness, if not for home.”
“Home!” repeated he, in an accent the sorrow of which sank into her very heart; “when had I ever a home? I had a house and lands, and equipages, horses, and liveried servants,—all that wealth could command, or, my own reckless vanity could prompt,—but these did not make a home!”
“You often promised we should have such one day, Bagenal,” said she, tenderly, while she stole her hand within his; “you often told me that the time would come when we should enjoy poverty with a better grace than ever we dispensed riches.”
“We surely are poor enough to make the trial now,” said he, with a bitterness of almost savage energy.
“And if we are, Bagenal,” replied she, “there is the more need to draw more closely to each other; let us begin at once.”
“Not yet, Molly, not yet,” said he, passing his hand across his eyes. “I would grasp such a refuge as eagerly as yourself, for,” added he, with deep emotion, “I am to the full as weary; but I cannot do it yet.”
Miss Daly knew her brother’s temper too long and too well either to offer a continued opposition to any strongly expressed resolve, or to question him about a subject on which he showed any desire of reserve.
“Have you no Dublin news for me?” she said, as if willing to suggest some less touching subject for conversation.
“No, Molly; Dublin is deserted. The few who still linger in town seem only half awake to the new condition of events. The Government party are away to England; they feel, doubtless, bound in honor to dispense their gold in the land it came from; and the Patriots—Heaven bless the mark!—they look as rueful as if they began to suspect that Patriotism was too dear a luxury after all.”
“And this burning of Newgate,-what did it mean? Was there, as the newspaper makes out, anything like a political plot connected with it?”
“Nothing of the kind, Molly. The whole affair was contrived among the prisoners. Freney, the well-known highwayman, was in the jail, and, although not tried, his conviction was certain.”
“And they say he has escaped. Can it be possible that some persons of influence, as the journals hint, actually interested themselves for the escape of a man like this?”
“Everything is possible in a state of society like ours, Molly.”
“But a highwayman—a robber—a fellow that made the roads unsafe to travel!”
“All true,” said Daly, laughing. “Nobody ever kept a hawk for a singing-bird; but he ‘s a bold villain to pounce upon another.”
“I like not such appliances; they scarcely serve a good name, and they make a bad one worse.”
“I’m quite of your mind, Molly,” said Daly, thoughtfully; “and if honest men were plenty, he would be but a fool who held any dealings with the knaves. But here comes the car to convey me to ‘The Corvy.’ I will make a hasty visit to Lady Eleanor, and be back with you by supper-time.”
CHAPTER X. DALY’S FAREWELL.
Neither of the ladies were at home when Bagenal Daly, followed by his servant Sandy, reached “The Corvy,” and sat down in the porch to await their return. Busied with his own reflections, which, to judge from the deep abstraction of his manner, seemed weighty and important, Daly never looked up from the ground, while Sandy leisurely walked round the building to note the changes made in his absence, and comment, in no flattering sense, on the art by which the builder had concealed so many traits of “The Corvy’s” origin.
“Ye ‘d no ken she was a ship ava!” said he to himself, as he examined the walls over which the trellised creepers were trained, and the latticed windows festooned by the honeysuckle and the clematis, and gazed in sadness over the altered building. “She’s no a bit like the auld Corvy!”
“Of course she ‘s not!” said Daly, testily, for the remark had suddenly aroused him from his musings. “What the devil would you have? Are you like the raw and ragged fellow I took from this bleak coast, and led over more than half the world?”
“Troth, I am no the same man noo that I was sax-and-forty years agane, and sorry I am to say it.”
“Sorry,—sorry! not to be half-starved and less than half-clad; hauling a net one day, and being dragged for yourself the next—sorry!”
“Even sae, sore sorry. Eight-and-sixty may be aye sorry not to be twa-and-twenty. I ken nae rise in life can pay off that score. It ‘s na ower pleasant to think on, but I’m no the man I was then. No, nor, for that matter, yerself neither.”
Daly was too long accustomed to the familiarity of Sandy’s manner to feel offended at the remark, though he did not seem by any means to relish its application. Without making any reply, he arose and entered the hall. On every side were objects reminding him of the past, strange and sad commentary on the words of his servant. Sandy appeared to feel the force of such allies, and, as he stood near, watched the effect the various articles produced on his master’s countenance.
“A bonnie rifle she is,” said he, as if interpreting the admiring look Daly bestowed upon a richly ornamented gun. “Do you mind the day yer honor shot the corbie at the Tegern See?”
“Where the Tyrol fellows set on us, on the road to Innspruck, and I brought down the bird to show them that they had to deal with a marksman as good at least as themselves.”
“Just sae; it was a bra’ shot; your hand was as firm, and your eye as steady then as any man’s.”
“I could do the feat this minute,” said Daly, angrily, as turning away he detached a heavy broadsword from the wall.
“She was aye over weighty in the hilt,” said Sandy, with a dry malice.
“You used to draw that bowstring to your ear,” said Daly, sternly, as he pointed to a Swiss bow of portentous size.
“I had twa hands in those days,” said the other, calmly, and without the slightest change of either voice or manner.
Not so with him to whom they were addressed. A flood of feelings seemed to pour across his memory, and, laying his hand on Sandy’s shoulder, he said, in an accent of very unusual emotion, “You are right, Sandy, I must be changed from what I used to be.”
“Let us awa to the auld life we led in those days,” said the other, impetuously, “and we ‘ll soon be ourselves again! Does n’t that remind yer honor of the dark night on the Ottawa, when you sent the canoe, with the pine-torch burning in her bow, down the stream, and drew all the fire of the Indian fellows on her?”
“It was a grand sight,” cried Daly, rapturously, “to see the dark river glittering with its torchlight, and the chiefs, as they stood rifle in hand, peering into the dense pine copse, and making the echoes ring with their war-cries.”
“It was unco near at one time,” said Sandy, as he took up the fold of the blanket with which his effigy in the canoe was costumed. “There ‘s the twa bullet-holes, and here the arrow-bead in the plank, where I had my bead! If ye had missed the Delaware chap wi’ the yellow cloth on his forehead—”
“I soon changed its color for him,” said Daly, savagely.
“Troth did ye; ye gied him a bonny war-paint. How he sprang into the air! I think I see him noo; many a night when I ‘m lying awake, I think I can hear the dreadful screech he gave, as he plunged into the river.”
“It was not a cry of pain, it was baffled vengeance,” said Daly.
“He never forgave the day ye gripped him by the twa hands in yer ain one, and made the squaws laugh at him. Eh, how that auld deevil they cau’d Black Buffalo yelled! Her greasy cheeks shook and swelled over her dark eyes, till the face looked like nothing but a tar lake in Demerara when there ‘s a hurricane blowin’ over it.”
“You had rather a tenderness in that quarter, if I remember aright,” said Daly, dryly.
“I ‘ll no deny she was a bra sauncie woman, and kenned weel to make a haggis wi’ an ape’s head and shoulders.” Sandy smacked his lips, as if the thought had brought up pleasant memories.
“How I escaped that bullet is more than I can guess,” said Daly, as he inspected the blanket where it was pierced by a shot; and as he spoke, he threw its wide folds over his shoulders, the better to judge of the position.
“Ye aye wore it more on this side,” said Sandy, arranging the folds with tasteful pride; “an’, troth, it becomes you well. Tak the bit tomahawk in your hand, noo. Ech! but yer like yoursel once more.”
“We may have to don this gear again, and sooner than you think,” said Daly, thoughtfully.
“Nae a bit sooner than I ‘d like,” said Sandy. “The salvages, as they ca’ them, hae neither baillies nor policemen, they hae nae cranks about lawyers and ‘tornies; a grip o’ a man’s hair and a sharp knife is even as mickle a reason as a hempen cord and a gallows tree! Ech, it warms my bluid again to see you stridin’ up and doon,—if you had but a smudge o’ yellow ochre, or a bit o’ red round your eyes, ye ‘d look awful well.”
“What are you staring at?” said Daly, as Sandy opened a door stealthily, and gazed down the passage towards the kitchen.
“I ‘m thinking that as there is naebody in the house but the twa lasses, maybe your honor would try a war-cry,—ye ken ye could do it bra’ly once.”
“I may need the craft soon again,” said Daly, thoughtfully.
“Mercy upon us! here ‘s the leddies!” cried Sandy. But before Daly could disencumber himself of his weapons and costume, Helen entered the hall.
If Lady Eleanor started at the strange apparition before her, and involuntarily turned her eye towards the canoe, to see that its occupant was still there, it is not much to be wondered at, so strongly did the real and the counterfeit man resemble each other. The first surprise over, he was welcomed with sincere pleasure. All the eccentricities of character which in former days were commented on so sharply were forgotten, or their memory replaced by the proofs of his ardent devotion.
“How well you are looking!” was his first exclamation, as he gazed at Lady Eleanor and Helen alternately, with that steady stare which is one of the prerogatives of age towards beauty.
“There is no such tonic as necessity,” said Lady Eleanor, smiling, “and it would seem as if health were too jealous to visit us when we have every other blessing.”
“It is worth them all, madam. I am an old man, and have seen much of the world, and I can safely aver that what are called its trials lie chiefly in our weaknesses. We can all of us carry a heavier load than fortune lays on us—” He suddenly checked himself, as if having unwittingly lapsed into something like rebuke, and then said, “I find you alone; is it not so?”
“Yes; Darcy has left us, suddenly and almost mysteriously, without you can help us to a clearer insight. A letter from the War Office arrived here on Tuesday, acknowledging, in most complimentary terms, the fairness of his claim for military employment, and requesting his presence in London. This was evidently in reply to an application, although the Knight made none such.”
“But he has friends, mamma,—warm-hearted and affectionate ones,-who might have done so,” said Helen, as she fixed her gaze steadily on Daly.
“And you, madam, have relatives of high and commanding influence,” said he, avoiding to return Helen’s glance,—“men of rank and station, who might well feel proud of such a protégé as Maurice Darcy. And what have they given him?”
“We can tell you nothing; the official letter may explain more to your clear-sightedness, and I will fetch it.” So saying, Lady Eleanor arose and left the room. Scarcely had the door closed, when Daly stood up, and, walking over, leaned his arm on the back of Helen’s chair.
“You received my letter, did you not?” said he, hurriedly. “You know the result of the trial?”
Helen nodded assent, while a secret emotion covered her face with crimson, as Daly resumed,—
“There was ill-luck everywhere: the case badly stated; Lionel absent; I myself detained in Dublin, by an unavoidable necessity,—everything unfortunate even to the last incident. Had I been there, matters would have taken another course. Still, Helen, Forester was right; and, depend upon it, there is no scanty store of generous warmth in a heart that can throb so strongly beneath the aiguiletted coat of an aide-de-camp. The holiday habits of that tinsel life teach few lessons of self-devotion, and the poor fellow has paid the penalty heavily.”
“What has happened?” said Helen, in a voice scarcely audible.
“He is disinherited, I hear. All his prospects depended on his mother; she has cast him off, and, as the story goes, is about to marry. Marriage is always the last vengeance of a widow.”
“Here is the letter,” said Lady Eleanor, entering; “let us hope you can read its intentions better than we have.”
“Flattering, certainly,” muttered Daly, as he conned over the lines to himself. “It’s quite plain they mean to do something generous. I trust I may learn it before I sail.”
“Sail! you are not about to travel, are you?” asked Lady Eleanor, in a voice that betrayed her dread of being deprived of such support.
“Oh! I forgot I had n’t told you. Yes, madam, another of those strange riddles which have beset my life compels me to take a long voyage—to America.”
“To America!” echoed Helen; and her eye glanced as she spoke to the Indian war-cloak and the weapons that lay beside his chair.
“Not so, Helen,” said Daly, smiling, as if replying to the insinuated remark; “I am too old for such follies now. Not in heart, indeed, but in limb,” added he, sternly; “for I own I could ask nothing better than the prairie or the pine-forest. I know of no cruelty in savage life that has not its counterpart amid our civilization; and for the rude virtues that are nurtured there, they are never warmed into existence by the hotbed of selfishness.”
“But why leave your friends,—your sister?”
“My sister!” He paused, and a tinge of red came to his cheek as he remembered how she had failed in all attention to the Darcys. “My sister, madam, is self-willed and headstrong as myself. She acknowledges none of the restraints or influence by which the social world consents to be bound and regulated; her path has ever been wild and erratic as my own. We sometimes cross, we never contradict, each other.” He paused, and then muttered to himself, “Poor Molly! how different I knew you once! And so,” added he, aloud, “I must leave without seeing Darcy! and there stands Sandy, admonishing me that my time is already up. Good-bye, Lady Eleanor; good-bye, Helen.” He turned his head away for a second, and then, in a voice of unusual feeling, said: “Farewell is always a sad word, and doubly sad when spoken by one old as I am; but if my heart is heavy at this moment, it is the selfish sorrow of him who parts from those so near. As for you, madam, and your fortunes, I am full of good hope. When people talk of suffering virtue, believe me, the element of courage must be wanting; but where the stout heart unites with the good cause, success will come at last.”
He pressed his lips to the hands he held within his own, and hurried, before they could reply, from the room.
“Our last friend gone!” exclaimed Lady Eleanor, as she sank into a chair.
Helen’s heart was too full for utterance, and she sat down silently, and watched the retiring figure of Daly and his servant till they disappeared in the distance.
CHAPTER XI. THE DUKE OF YORK’S LEVEE.
When Darcy arrived in London, he found a degree of political excitement for which he was little prepared. In Ireland the Union had absorbed all interest and anxiety, and with the fate of that measure were extinguished the hopes of those who had speculated on national independence. Not so in England; the real importance of the annexation was never thoroughly considered till the fact was accomplished, nor, until then, were the great advantages and the possible evils well and maturely weighed. Then, for the first time, came the anxious question, What next? Was the Union to be the compensation for large concessions to the Irish people, or was it rather the seal of their incorporation with a more powerful nation, who by this great stroke of policy would annihilate forever all dream of self-existence? Mr. Pitt inclined to the former opinion, and believed the moment propitious to award the Roman Catholic claims, and to a general remission of those laws which pressed so heavily upon them. To this opinion the King was firmly and, as it proved, insurmountably opposed; he regarded the Act of Union as the final settlement of all possible disagreements between the two countries, as the means of uniting the two Churches, and, finally, of excluding at once and forever the admission of Roman Catholics to Parliament. This wide difference led to the retirement of Mr. Pitt, and subsequently to the return of the dangerous indisposition of the King, an attack brought on by the anxiety and agitation this question induced.
The hopes of the Whig party stood high; the Prince’s friends, as they were styled, again rallied around Carlton House, where, already, the possibility of a long Regency was discussed. Besides these causes of excitement were others of not less powerful interest,—the growing power of Bonaparte, the war in Egypt, and the possibility of open hostilities with Russia, who had now thrown herself so avowedly into the alliance of France.
Such were the stirring themes Darcy found agitating the public mind, and he could not help contrasting the mighty interests they involved with the narrow circle of consequences a purely local legislature could discuss or decide upon. He felt at once that he trod the soil of a more powerful and more ambitious people, and he remembered with a sigh his own anticipations, that in the English Parliament the Irish members would be but the camp-followers of the Crown or the Opposition.
If he was English in his pride of government and his sense of national power and greatness, he was Irish in his tastes, his habits, and his affections. If he gloried in the name of Briton as the type of national honor and truth throughout the globe, he was still more ardently attached to that land where, under the reflected grandeur of the monarchy, grew up the social affections of a poorer people. There is a sense of freedom and independence in the habits of semi-civilization very fascinating to certain minds, and all the advantages of more polished communities are deemed shallow compensation for the ready compliance and cordial impulses of the less cultivated.
With all his own high acquirements the Knight was of this mind; and if he did not love England less, he loved Ireland more.
Meditating on the great changes of fortune Ireland had undergone even within his own memory, he moved along through the crowded thoroughfares of the mighty city, when he heard his name called out, and at the same instant a carriage drew up close by him.
“How do you do, Knight?” said a friendly voice, as a hand was stretched forth to greet him. It was Lord Castle-reagh, who had only a few weeks previous exchanged his office of Irish Secretary for a post at the Board of Trade. The meeting was a cordial one on both sides, and ended in an invitation to dine on the following day, which Darcy accepted with willingness, as a gage of mutual good feeling and esteem.
“I was talking about you to Lord Netherby only yesterday,” said Lord Castlereagh, “and, from some hints he dropped, I suspect the time is come that I may offer you any little influence I possess, without it taking the odious shape of a bargain; if so, pray remember that I have as much pride as yourself on such a score, and will be offended if you accept from another what might come equally well through me.”
The Knight acknowledged this kind speech with a grateful smile and a pressure of the hand, and was about to move on, when Lord Castlereagh asked if he could not drop him in his carriage at his destination, and thus enjoy, a few moments longer, his society.
“I scarcely can tell you, my Lord,” said Darcy, laughing, “which way I was bent on following. I came up to town to present myself at the Duke of York’s levée, and it is only a few moments since I remembered that I was not provided with a uniform.”
“Oh, step in then,” cried Lord Castlereagh, hastily; “I think I can manage that difficulty for you. There is a levée this very morning; some pressing intelligence has arrived from Egypt, and his Royal Highness has issued a notice for a reception for eleven o’clock. You are not afraid,” said Lord Castlereagh, laughing, as Darcy took his seat beside him,—“you are not afraid of being seen in such company now.”
“If I am not, my Lord, set my courage down to my principle; for I never felt your kindness so dangerous,” said the Knight, with something of emotion.
A few moments of rapid driving brought them in front of the Duke’s residence, where several carriages and led horses were now standing, and officers in full dress were seen to pass in and out, with signs of haste and eagerness.
“I told you we should find them astir here,” said Lord Castlereagh. “Holloa, Fane, have you heard anything new to-day?”
The officer thus addressed touched his hat respectfully, and approaching the window of the carriage, whispered a few words in Lord Castlereagh’s ear.
“Is the news confirmed?” said his Lordship, calmly.
“I believe so, my Lord; at least, Edgecumbe says he heard it from Dundas, who got it from Pitt himself.”
“Bad tidings these, Knight,” said Lord Castlereagh, as the aide-de-camp moved away; “Pulteney’s expedition against Ferrol has failed. These conjoint movements of army and navy seem to have a most unlucky fortune.”
“What can you expect, my Lord, from an ill-assorted ‘Union’?” said Darcy, slyly.
“They ‘ll work better after a time,” said Lord Castlereagh, smiling good-humoredly at the hit; “for the present, I acknowledge the success is not flattering. The general always discovers that the land batteries can only be attacked in the very spot where the admiral pronounces the anchorage impossible; each feels compromised by the other; hence envy and every manner of uncharitableness.”
“And what has been the result here? Is it a repulse?”
“You can scarcely call it that, since they never attacked. They looked at the place, sailed round it, and, like the King of France in the story, they marched away again. But here we are at length at the door; let us try if we cannot accomplish a landing better than Lord Keith and General Moore.”
Through a crowd of anxious faces, whose troubled looks tallied with the evil tidings, Lord Castlereagh and Darcy ascended the stairs and reached the antechamber, now densely thronged by officers of every grade of the service. His Lordship was immediately recognized and surrounded by many of the company, eager to hear his opinion.
“You don’t appear to credit the report, my Lord,” said Darcy, who had watched with some interest the air of quiet incredulity which he assumed.
“It is all true, notwithstanding,” said he, in a whisper; “I heard it early this morning at the Council, and came here to see how it would be received. They say that war will be soon as unpopular with the red-coats as with the no-coats; and really, to look at these sombre faces, one would say there was some truth in the rumor. But here comes Taylor.” And so saying, Lord Castlereagh moved forward, and laid his hand on the arm of an officer in a staff uniform.
“I don’t think so, my Lord,” said he, in reply to some question from Lord Castlereagh; “I ‘ll endeavor to manage it, but I ‘m afraid I shall not succeed. Have you heard of Elliot’s death? The news has just arrived.”
“Indeed! So then the government of Chelsea is to give away. Oh, that fact explains the presence of so many veteran generals! I really was puzzled to conceive what martial ardor stirred them.”
“You are severe, my Lord,” said Darcy; “I hope you are unjust.”
“One is rarely so in attributing a selfish motive anywhere,” said the young nobleman, sarcastically. “But, Taylor, can’t you arrange this affair? Let me present my friend meanwhile: The Knight of Gwynne—Colonel Taylor.”
Before Taylor could more than return the Knight’s salutation he was summoned to attend his Royal Highness; and at the same moment the folding-doors at the end of the apartment were thrown open, and the reception began.
Whether the sarcasm of Lord Castlereagh was correct, or that a nobler motive was in operation, the number of officers was very great; and although the Duke rarely addressed more than a word or two to each, a considerable time elapsed before Lord Castlereagh, with the Knight following, had entered the room.
“It is against a positive order of his Royal Highness, my Lord,” said an aide-de-camp, barring the passage; “none but field-officers, and in full uniform, are received by his Royal Highness.”
Lord Castlereagh whispered something, and endeavored to move on; but again the other interposed, saying, “Indeed, my Lord, I’m deeply grieved at it, but I cannot—I dare not transgress my orders.”
The Duke, who had been up to this moment engaged in conversing with a group, suddenly turned, and perceiving that the presentations were not followed up, said, “Well, gentlemen, I am waiting.” Then recognizing Lord Castlereagh, he added, “Another time, my Lord, another time: this morning belongs to the service, and the color of your coat excludes you.”
“I ask your Royal Highness’s pardon,” said Lord Castlereagh, in a tone of great deference, while he made the apology an excuse for advancing a step into the room. “I have but just left the Council, and was anxious to inform you that your Royal Highness’s suggestions have been fully adopted.”
“Indeed! is that the case?” said the Duke, with an elated look, while he drew his Lordship into the recess of a window. The intelligence, to judge from the Duke’s expression, must have been both important and satisfactory, for he looked intensely eager and pleased by turns.
“And so,” said he, aloud, “they really have determined on Egypt? Well, my Lord, you have brought me the best tidings I ‘ve heard for many a day.”
“And like all bearers of good despatches,” said Lord Castlereagh, catching up the tone of the Duke, “I prefer a claim to your Royal Highness’s patronage.”
“If you look for Chelsea, my Lord, you are just five minutes too late. Old Sir Harry Belmore has this instant got it.”
“I could have named as old and perhaps a not less distinguished soldier to your Royal Highness, with this additional claim,—a claim I must say, your Royal Highness never disregards”—
“That he has been unfortunate with the unlucky,” said the Duke, laughing, and good-naturedly alluding to his own failure in the expedition to the Netherlands; “but who is your friend?”
“The Knight of Gwynne,—an Irish gentleman.”
“One of your late supporters, eh, Castlereagh?” said the Duke, laughing. “How came he to be forgotten till this hour? Or did you pass him a bill of gratitude payable at nine months after date?”
“No, my Lord, he was an opponent; he was a man that I never could buy, when his influence and power were such as to make the price of his own dictating. Since that day, fortune has changed with him.”
“And what do you want with him now?” said the Duke, while his eyes twinkled with a sly malice; “are you imitating the man that bowed down before statues of Hercules and Apollo at Rome, not knowing when the time of those fellows might come up again? Is that your game?”
“Not exactly, your Royal Highness; but I really feel some scruples of conscience that, having assisted so many unworthy candidates to pensions and peerages, I should have done nothing for the most upright man I met in Ireland.”
“If we could make him a Commissary-General,” said the Duke, laughing, “the qualities you speak of would be of service now: there never was such a set of rascals as we have got in that department! But come, what can we do with him? What ‘s his rank in the army? Where did he serve?”
“If I dare present him to your Royal Highness without a uniform,” said Lord Castlereagh, hesitatingly, “he could answer these queries better than I can.”
“Oh, by Jove! it is too late for scruples now,—introduce him at once.”
Lord Castlereagh waited for no more formal permission, but, hastening to the antechamber, took Darcy’s hand, and led him forward.
“If I don’t mistake, sir,” said the Duke, as the old man raised his head after a deep and courteous salutation, “this is not the first time we have met. Am I correct in calling you Colonel Darcy?”
The Knight bowed low in acquiescence.
“The same officer who raised the Twenty-eighth Light Dragoons, known as Darcy’s Light Horse?”
The Knight bowed once more.
“A very proud officer in command,” said the Duke, turning to Lord Castlereagh with a stern expression on his features; “a colonel who threatened a prince of the blood with arrest for breach of duty.”
“He had good reason, your Royal Highness, to be proud,” said the Knight, firmly; “first, to have a prince to serve under his command; and, secondly, to have held that station and character in the service to have rendered so unbecoming a threat pardonable.”
“And who said it was?” replied the Duke, hastily.
“Your Royal Highness has just done so.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, my Lord Duke,” said Darcy, with a calm and unmoved look, “that your Royal Highness would never have recurred to the theme to one humbled as I am, if you had not forgiven it.”
“As freely as I trust you forgive me, Colonel Darcy,” said the Duke, grasping his hand and shaking it with warmth. “Now for my part: what can I do for you?—what do you wish?”
“I can scarcely ask your Royal Highness; I find that some kind friend has already applied on my behalf. I could not have presumed, old and useless as I am, to prefer a claim myself.”
“There’s your own regiment vacant,” said the Duke, musing. “No, by Jove! I remember Lord Netherby asking me for it the other day for some relative of his own. Taylor, is the colonelcy of the Twenty-eighth promised?”
“Your Royal Highness signed it yesterday.”
“I feared as much. Who is it?—perhaps he’d exchange.”
“Colonel Maurice Darcy, your Royal Highness, unattached.”
“What! have I been doing good by stealth? Is this really so?”
“If it be, your Royal Highness,” said Darcy, smiling, “I can only assure you that the officer promoted will not exchange.”
“The depot is at Gosport, your Royal Highness,” said Taylor, in reply to a question from the Duke.
“Well, station it in Ireland, Colonel Darcy may prefer it,” said the duke; “for, as the regiment forms part of the expedition to Egypt, the depot need not be moved for some time to come.”
“Your Royal Highness can increase the favor by only one concession—dare I ask it?—to permit me to take the command on service.”
The Duke gazed with astonishment at the old man, and gradually his expression became one of deep interest, as he said,—
“Colonel Darcy could claim as a right what I feel so proud to accord him as a favor. Make a note of that, Taylor,” said the Duke, raising his voice so as to be heard through the room: “‘Colonel Darcy to take the command on service at his own special request.’ Yes, gentlemen,” added he, louder, “these are times when the exigencies of the service demand alike the energy of youth and the experience of age; it is, indeed, a happy conjuncture that finds them united. My Lord Castlereagh and Colonel Darcy, are you disengaged for Wednesday?”
They both bowed respectfully.
“Then on Wednesday I’ll have some of your brother officers to meet you, Colonel. Now, Taylor, let us get through our list.”
So saying, the Duke bowed graciously; and Lord Castlereagh and the Knight retired, each too full of pleasure to utter a word as he went.
CHAPTER XII. THE TWO SIDES OF A MEDAL
Although the Knight lost not an hour in writing to Lady Eleanor, informing her of his appointment, the letter, hastily written, and intrusted to a waiter to be posted, was never forwarded, and the first intelligence of the event reached her in a letter from her courtly relative, Lord Netherby.
So much depends upon the peculiar tact and skill of the writer, and so much upon our own frame of mind at the time of reading, that it is difficult to say whether we do not bear up better under the announcement of any sudden and sorrowful event from the hand of one less cared for than from those nearest and dearest to our hearts. The consolations that look like the special pleadings of affection become, as it were, the mere expressions of impartiality. The points of view, being so different, give a different aspect to the picture, and gleams of light fall where, seen from another quarter, all was shadow and gloom. So it was here. What, if the tidings had come from her husband, had been regarded in the one painful light of separation and long absence, assumed, under Lord Netherby’s style, the semblance of a most gratifying event, with, of course, that alloy of discomfort from which no human felicity is altogether free: so very artfully was this done, that Lady Eleanor half felt as if, in indulging in her own sorrow, she were merely giving way to a selfish regret; and as Helen, the better to sustain her mother’s courage, affected a degree of pleasure she was really far from feeling, this added to the conviction that she ought, if she could, to regard her husband’s appointment as a happy event.
“Truly, mamma,” said Helen, as she sat with the letter before her, “Me style c’est l’homme.’ His Lordship is quite heroic when describing all the fêtes and dinners of London; all the honors showered on papa in visiting-cards and invitations; how excellencies called, and royal highnesses shook hands: he even chronicles the distinguishing favor of the gracious Prince, who took wine with him. But listen to him when the theme is really one that might evoke some trait, if not of enthusiasm, at least of national pride: ‘As for the expedition, my dear cousin, though nobody knows exactly for what place it is destined, everybody is aware that it is not intended to be a fighting one. Demonstrations are now the vogue, and it is become just as bad taste for our army to shed blood as it would be for a well-bred man to mention a certain ill-conducted individual before ears polite. Modern war is like a game at whist between first-rate players; when either party has four by honors, he shows his hand, and saves the trouble of a contest. The Naval Service is, I grieve to say, rooted to its ancient prejudices, and continues its abominable pastime of broadsides and boardings; hence its mob popularity at this moment! The army will, however, always be the gentlemanlike cloth, and I thank my stars I don’t believe we have a single relative afloat. Guy Herries was the last; he was shot or piked, I forget which, in boarding a Spanish galliot off Cape Verde. “Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?” Rest satisfied, therefore, if the gallant Knight has little glory, he will have no dangers; our expeditions never land. Jekyll says they are only intended to give the service an appetite for fresh meat and soft bread, after four months’ biscuit and salt beef. At all events, my dear cousin, reckon on seeing my friend the Knight gazetted as major-general on the very next promotions. The Prince is delighted with him; and I carried a message from his Royal Highness yesterday to the War Office in his behalf. You would not come to see me, despite all the seductions I threw out, and now the season is nigh over. May I hope better things for the next year, when perhaps I can promise an inducement the more, and make your welcome more graceful by dividing its cares with one far more competent than myself to fulfil them.’—What does he mean, mamma?”
“Read on, my dear; I believe I can guess the riddle.”
“‘The person I allude to was, in former days, if not actually a friend, a favored intimate of yours; indeed, I say that this fact is but another claim to my regard.’—Is it possible, mamma, his Lordship thinks of marrying?”
“Even so, Helen,” said Lady Eleanor, sighing, for she remembered how, in his very last interview with her at Gwynne Abbey, he spoke of his resolve on making Lionel his heir; but then, those were the days of their prosperous fortune, the time when, to all seeming, they needed no increase of wealth.
If Helen was disposed to laugh at the notion of Lord Netherby’s marrying, a glance at the troubled expression of her mother’s features would have checked the emotion. The heritage was a last hope, which was not the less cherished that she had never imparted it to another.
“Shall I read on?” said Helen, timidly; and at a signal from Lady Eleanor she resumed: “‘I know how much “badinage” a man at my time of life must expect from his acquaintances, and how much of kind remonstrance from his friends, when he announces his determination to marry. A good deal of this must be set down to the score of envy, some of it proceeds from mere habit on these occasions, and lastly, one’s bachelor friends very naturally are averse to the closure against them of a house “où on dîne.” I have thought of all this, and, per contra, I have set down the isolation of one, if not deserted, at least somewhat neglected by his relatives, and fancied that if not exactly of that age when people marry for love, I am not yet quite so old but I may become the object of true and disinterested affection.
“‘Lady———(I have pledged my honor not to write her name, even to you) is, in rank and fortune, fully my equal, in every other quality my superior. The idlers at “Boodle’s” can neither sneer at a “mésalliance,” nor hint at the “faiblesse” of an “elderly gentleman.” It is a marriage founded on mutual esteem, and, so far as station is concerned, on equality; and when I say that his Royal Highness has expressed his unqualified approval of the step, I believe I can add no more. I owe you, my dear cousin, this early and full explanation of my motives on many accounts: if the result should change the dispositions I once believed unalterable, I beg it may be understood as proceeding far more from necessity than the sincere wish of your very affectionate relative,
“‘Netherby.
“‘My regret at not seeing Helen here this season is, in a measure, alleviated by Lady————- telling me that brunettes were more the rage; her Ladyship, who is no common arbiter, says that no “blonde” attracted any notice: even Lady Georgiana Maydew drew no admiration. My fair cousin is, happily, very young, et les beaux jours viendront, even before hers have lost their brilliancy.
“‘I am sorry Lionel left the Coldstreams; with economy he could very well have managed to hold his ground, and we might have obtained something for him in the Household. As for India, the only influential person I know is my wine-merchant; he is, I am told, a Director of the Honorable Company, but he ‘d certainly adulterate my Madeira if I condescended to ask him a favor.’”
“Well, Helen, I think you will agree with me, selfishness is the most candid of all the vices; how delightfully unembarrassed is his Lordship’s style, how frank, honest, and straightforward!”
“After his verdict upon ‘blondes’, mamma,” said Helen, laughing, “I dare not record my opinion of him,—I cannot come into court an impartial evidence. This, however, I will say, that if his Lordship be not an unhappy instance of the school, I am sincerely rejoiced that Lionel is not being trained up a courtier; better a soldier’s life with all its hazards and its dangers, than a career so certain to kill every manly sentiment.”
“I agree with you fully, Helen; life cannot be circumscribed within petty limits and occupied by petty cares without reducing the mind to the same miniature dimensions; until at last so immeasurably greater are our own passions and feelings than the miserable interests around us, we end by self-worship and egotism, and fancy ourselves leviathans because we swim in a fish-pond. But who can that be crossing the grass-plot yonder? I thought our neighbors of Port Ballintray had all left the coast?”
“It is the gentleman who dined here, mamma, the man that never spoke—I forget his name—”
Helen had not time to finish, when a modest tap was heard at the door, and the next moment Mr. Leonard presented himself. He was dressed with more than his wonted care, but the effort to make poverty respectable was everywhere apparent; the blue frock was brushed to the very verge of its frail existence, the gloves were drawn on at the hazard of their integrity, and his hat, long inured to every vicissitude of weather, had been cocked into a strange counterfeit of modish smartness. With all these signs of unusual attention to appearances, his manner was modest even to humility, and he took a chair with the diffidence of one who seemed to doubt the propriety of being seated in such a presence.
Notwithstanding Lady Eleanor’s efforts at conversation, aided by Helen, who tried in many ways to relieve the embarrassment of their visitor, this difficulty seemed every moment greater, and he seemed, as he really felt, to have summoned up all his courage for an undertaking, and in the very nick of the enterprise, to have left himself beggared of his energy. A vague assent, a look of doubt and uncertainty, a half-muttered expression of acquiescence in whatever was said, was all that could be obtained from him; but still, while his embarrassment appeared each instant greater, he evinced no disposition to take his leave. Lady Eleanor, who, like many persons whose ordinary manner is deemed cold and haughty, could exert at will considerable powers of pleasing, did her utmost to put her visitor at his ease, and by changing her topics from time to time, detect, if possible, some clew to his coming. It was all in vain: he followed her, it is true, as well as he was able, and with a bewildered look of constrained attention, seemed endeavoring to interest himself in what she said, but it was perfectly apparent, all the while, that his mind was preoccupied, and by very different thoughts.
At length she remained silent, and resuming the work she was engaged on when he entered, sat for some time without uttering a word, or even looking up. Mr. Leonard coughed slightly, but, as if terrified at his own rashness, soon became mute and still. At last, after a long pause, so long that Lady Eleanor and Helen, forgetful of their visitor, had become deeply immersed in their own reflections, Mr. Leonard arose slowly, and with a voice not free from a certain tremor, said, “Well, madam, then I suppose I may venture to say that I saw you and Miss Darcy both well.”
Lady Eleanor looked up with astonishment, for she could not conceive the meaning of the words, nor in what quarter they were to be reported.
“I mean, madam,” said Leonard, “that when I present myself to the Colonel, I may take the liberty to mention having seen you.”
“Do you speak of my husband, sir,—Colonel Darcy?” said Lady Eleanor, with a very different degree of interest in her look and accent.
“Yes, madam,” said Leonard, with a kind of forced courage in his manner. “I hope to be under his command in a few days.”
“Indeed, sir!” said Lady Eleanor, with animation; “I did not know that you had served, still less that you were about to join the army once more.”
Leonard blushed deeply, and he suddenly grew deadly pale, while, in a voice scarcely louder than a mere whisper, he muttered, “So then, madam, Colonel Darcy has never spoken of me to you?”
Lady Eleanor, who misunderstood the meaning of the question, seemed slightly confused as she replied, “I have no recollection of it, sir,—I cannot call up at this moment having heard your name from my husband.”
“I ought to have known it,—I ought to have been certain of it,” said Leonard, in a voice bursting from emotion, while the tears gushed from his eyes; “he could not have asked me to his house to sit down at his table as a mere object of your pity and contempt; and yet I am nothing else.”
The passionate vehemence in which he now spoke seemed so different from his recent manner, that both Lady Eleanor and Helen had some doubts as to his sanity, when he quickly resumed: “I was broke for cowardice,—dismissed the service with disgrace,—degraded! Well may I call it so, to be what I became. I would tell you that I was not guilty,—that Colonel Darcy knows,—but I dare not choose between the character of a coward and—a drunkard. I had no other prospect before me than a life of poverty and repining,—maybe of worse,—of shame and ignominy! when, last night, I received these letters; I scarcely thought they could be for me, even when I read my name on them. Yes, madam, this letter from the War Office permits me to serve as a volunteer with the Eighth Regiment of Foot; and this, which is without signature, encloses me fifty pounds to buy my outfit and join the regiment. It does not need a name; there is but one man living could stoop to help such as I am, and not feel dishonored by the contact; there is but one man brave enough to protect him branded as a coward.”
“You are right, sir,” cried Helen; “this must be my father’s doing.”
Leonard tried to speak, but could not; a trembling motion of his lips, and a faint sound issued, but nothing articulate. Lady Eleanor stopped him as he moved towards the door, and taking his hand pressed it cordially, while she said, “Be of good heart, sir; my husband is not less quick to perceive than he is ever ready to befriend. Be assured he would not now be your ally if he had not a well-grounded hope that you would merit it. Farewell, then; remember you have a double tie to duty, and that his credit as well as your own is on the issue.”
Leonard muttered a faint “I will,” and departed.
“How happily timed is this little incident, Helen,” said Lady Eleanor, as she drew her daughter to her side; “how full of pleasant hope it fills the heart, at a moment when the worldly selfishness of the courtier’s letter had left us low and sorrow-struck! These are indeed the sunny spots in life, that never look so brilliant as when seen amid lowering skies and darkening storms.”
CHAPTER XIII. AN UNCEREMONIOUS VISIT
As winter drew near, with its dark and leaden skies, and days and nights of storm and hurricane, so did the worldly prospect of Lady Eleanor and her daughter grow hourly more gloomy. Bicknell’s letters detailed new difficulties and embarrassments on every hand. Sums of money supposed to have been long since paid and acknowledged by Gleeson, were now demanded with all the accruing interest; rights hitherto unquestioned were now threatened with dispute, as Hickman O’Reilly’s success emboldened others to try their fortune. Of the little property that still remained to them, the rents were withheld until their claim to them should be once more established by law. Disaster followed disaster, till at length the last drop filled up the measure of their misery, as they learned that the Knight’s personal liberty was at stake, and more than one writ was issued for his arrest.
The same post that brought this dreadful intelligence brought also a few lines from Darcy, the first that had reached them since his departure.
His note was dated from the “‘Hermione’ frigate, off the Needles,” and contained little more than an affectionate farewell. He wrote in health, and apparently in spirits, full of the assurance of a speedy and happy meeting; nor was there any allusion to their embarrassments, save in the vague mention of a letter he had written to Bicknell, and who would himself write to Lady Eleanor.
“It is not, dearest Eleanor,” wrote he, “the time we would have selected for a separation, when troubles thicken around us; yet who knows if the incident may not fall happily, and turn our thoughts from the loss of fortune to the many blessings we enjoy in mutual affection and in our children’s love, all to thicken around us at our meeting? I confess, too, I have a pride in being thought worthy to serve my country still, not in the tiresome monotony of a depot, but in the field,—among the young, the gallant, and the brave! Is it not enough to take off half this load of years, and make me fancy myself the gay colonel you may remember cantering beside your carriage in the Park—I shame to say how long ago! I wonder what the French will think of us, for nearly every officer in command might be superannuated, and Abercrombie is as venerable in white hairs as myself! There are, however, plenty of young and dashing fellows to replace us, and the spirit of the whole army is admirable.
“Whither we are destined, what will be our collective force, and what the nature of the expedition, are profound secrets, with which even the generals of brigades are not intrusted; so that all I can tell you is, that some seven hundred and fifty of us are now sailing southward, under a steady breeze from the north-northwest; that the land is each moment growing fainter to my eyes, while the pilot is eagerly pressing me to conclude this last expression of my love to yourself and dearest Helen. Adieu.
“Ever yours,
“Maurice Darcy.”
As with eyes half dimmed by tears Lady Eleanor read these lines, she could not help muttering a thanksgiving that her husband was at least beyond the risk of that danger of which Bicknell spoke,—an indignity, she feared, he never could have survived.
“And better still,” cried Helen, “if a season of struggle and privation awaits us, that we should bear it alone,’ and not before his eyes, for whom such a prospect would be torture. Now let us see how to meet the evil.” So saying, she once more opened Bicknell’s letter, and began to peruse it carefully; while Lady Eleanor sat, pale and in silence, nor even by a gesture showing any consciousness of the scene.
“What miserable trifling do all these legal subtleties seem!” said the young girl, after she had read for some time; “how trying to patience to canvass the petty details by which a clear and honest cause must be asserted! Here are fees to counsel, briefs, statements, learned opinions, and wise consultations multiplied to show that we are the rightful owners of what our ancestors have held for centuries, while every step of usurpation by these Hickmans would appear almost unassailable. With what intensity of purpose, too, does that family persecute us! All these actions are instituted by them; these bonds are all in their hands. What means this hate?”
Lady Eleanor looked up; and as her eyes met Helen’s, a faint flush colored her cheek, for she thought of her interview with the old doctor, and that proposal by which their conflicting interests were to be satisfied.
“We surely never injured them,” resumed the young girl, eagerly; “they were always well and hospitably received by us. Lionel even liked Beecham, when they were boys together,-a mild and quiet youth he was.”
“So I thought him, too,” said Lady Eleanor, stealing a cautious glance at her daughter. “We saw them,” continued she, more boldly, “under circumstances of no common difficulty,—struggling under the embarrassment of a false social position, with such a grandfather!”
“And such a father! Nay, mamma, of the two you must confess the doctor was our favorite. The old man’s selfishness was not half so vulgar as his son’s ambition.”
“And yet, Helen,” said Lady Eleanor, calmly, “such are the essential transitions by which families are formed; wealthy in one generation, aspiring in the next, recognized gentry—mayhap titled—in the third. It is but rarely that the whole series unfolds itself before our eyes at once, as in the present instance, and consequently it is but rarely that we detect so palpably all its incongruities and absurdities. A few years more,” added she, with a deep sigh, “and these O’Reillys will be regarded as the rightful owners of Gwynne Abbey by centuries of descent; and if an antiquary detect the old leopards of the Darcys frowning from some sculptured keystone, it will be to weave an ingenious theory of intermarriage between the houses.”
“An indignity they might well have spared us,” said Helen, proudly.
“Such are the world’s changes,” continued Lady Eleanor, pursuing her own train of thought. “How very few remember the origin of our proudest houses, and how little does it matter whether the foundations have been laid by the rude courage of some lawless baron of the tenth century, or the crafty shrewdness of some Hickman O’Reilly of the nineteenth!”
If there was a tone of bitter mockery in Lady Eleanor’s words, there was also a secret meaning which, even to her own heart, she would not have ventured to avow. By one of those strange and most inexplicable mysteries of our nature, she was endeavoring to elicit from her daughter some expression of dissent to her own recorded opinion of the O’Reillys and seeking for some chance word which might show that Helen regarded an alliance with that family with more tolerant feelings than she did herself.
Her intentions on this head were uot destined to be successful. Helen’s prejudices on the score of birth and station were rather strengthened than shaken by the changes of fortune; she cherished the prestige of their good blood as a source of proud consolation that no adversity could detract from. Before, however, she could reply, the tramp of a horse’s feet—a most unusual sound—was heard on the gravel without; and immediately after the heavy foot of some one, as if feeling his way in the dark towards the door. Without actual fear, but not without intense anxiety, both mother and daughter heard the heavy knocking of a loaded horsewhip on the door; nor was it until old Tate had twice repeated his question that a sign replied he might open the door.
“Look to the pony there!” cried a voice, as the old man peered out into the dark night. And before he could reply or resist, the speaker pushed past him and entered the room. “I crave your pardon, my Lady Eleanor,” said she,—for it was Miss Daly, who, drenched with rain and all splashed with mud, now stood before them,—“I crave your pardon for this visit of so scant ceremony. Has the Knight returned yet?”
The strong resemblance to her brother Bagenal, increased by her gesture and the tones of her voice, at once proclaimed to Lady Eleanor who her visitor was; and as she rose graciously to receive her, she replied that “the Knight, so far from having returned, had already sailed with the expedition under General Abercrombie.”
Miss Daly listened with breathless eagerness to the words, and as they concluded, she exclaimed aloud, “Thank God!” and threw herself into a chair. A pause, which, if brief, was not devoid of embarrassment, followed; and while Lady Eleanor was about to break it, Miss Daly again spoke, but with a voice and manner very different from before: “You will pardon, I am certain, the rudeness of my intrusion, Lady Eleanor, and you, too, Miss Darcy, when I tell you that my heart was too full of anxiety to leave any room for courtesy. It was only this afternoon that an accident informed me that a person had arrived in this neighborhood with a writ to arrest the Knight of Gwynne. I was five-and-twenty miles from this when I heard the news, and although I commissioned my informant to hasten thither with the tidings, I grew too full of dread, and had too many fears of a mischance, to await the result, so that I resolved to come myself.”
“How full of kindness!” exclaimed Lady Eleanor, while Helen took Miss Daly’s hand and pressed it to her lips. “Let our benefactress not suffer too much in our cause. Helen, dearest, assist Miss Daly to a change of dress. You are actually wet through.”
“Nay, nay, Lady Eleanor, you must not teach me fastidiousness. It has been my custom for many a year not to care for weather, and in the kind of life I lead such training is indispensable.” Miss Daly removed her hat as she spoke, and, pushing back her dripping hair, seemed really insensible to the discomforts which caused her hosts so much uneasiness.
“I see clearly,” resumed she, laughing, “I was right in not making myself known to you before; for though you may forgive the eccentricities that come under the mask of good intentions, you ‘d never pardon the thousand offences against good breeding and the world’s prescription which spring from the wayward fancies of an old maid who has lived so much beyond the pale of affection she has forgotten all the arts that win it.”
“If you are unjust to yourself, Miss Daly, pray be not so to us; nor think that we can be insensible to friendship like yours.”
“Oh, as for this trifling service, you esteem it far too highly; besides, when you hear the story, you’ll see how much more you have to thank your own hospitality than my promptitude.”
“This is, indeed, puzzling me,” exclaimed Lady Eleanor.
“Do you remember having met and received at your house a certain Mr. Dempsey?”
“Certainly, he dined with us on one occasion, and paid us some three or four visits. A tiresome little vulgar man, with a most intense curiosity devouring him to know everything of everybody.”
“To this gift, or infirmity, whichever it be, we are now indebted. Since the breaking-up of the boarding-house at Port Ballintray, which this year was somewhat earlier than usual,”—here Miss Daly smiled slightly, as though there lay more in the words than they seemed to imply,—“Mr. Dempsey betook himself to a little village near Glenarm, where I have been staying, and where the chief recommendation as a residence lay possibly in the fact that the weekly mail-car to Derry changed horses there. Hence an opportunity of communing with the world he valued at its just price. It so chanced that the only traveller who came for three weeks, arrived the night before last, drenched to the skin, and so ill from cold, hunger, and exhaustion that, unable to prosecute his journey farther, he was carried from the car to his bed. Mr. Dempsey, whose heart is really as kind as inquisitive, at once tendered his services to the stranger, who after some brief intercourse commissioned him to open his portmanteau, and taking out writing-materials, to inform his friends in Dublin of his sudden indisposition, and his fears that his illness might delay, or perhaps render totally abortive, his mission to the north. Here was a most provoking mystery for Mr. Dempsey. The very allusion to a matter of importance, in this dubious half-light, was something more than human nature should be tried with; and if the patient burned with the fever of the body, Mr. Dempsey suffered under the less tolerable agony of mental torment,—imagining every possible contingency that should bring a stranger down into a lonely neighborhood, and canvassing every imaginable inducement, from seduction to highway robbery. Whether the sick man’s sleep was merely the heavy debt of exhausted nature, or whether Mr. Dempsey aided his repose by adding a few drops to the laudanum prescribed by the doctor, true it is, he lay in a deep slumber, and never awoke till late the following day; meanwhile Mr. Dempsey recompensed his Samaritanism by a careful inspection of the stranger’s trunk and its contents, and, in particular, made a patient examination of two parchment documents, which, fortunately for his curiosity, were not sealed, but simply tied with red tape.
Great was his surprise to discover that one of these was a writ to arrest a certain Paul Dempsey, and the other directed against the resident of ‘The Corvy,’ whom he now, for the first time, learned was the Knight of Gwynne.
“Self-interest, the very instinct of safety itself, weighed less with him than his old passion for gossip; and no sooner had he learned the important fact of who his neighbor was, than he set off straight to communicate the news to me. I must do him the justice to say, that when I proposed his hastening off to you with the tidings, the little man acceded with the utmost promptitude; but as his journey was to be performed on foot, and by certain mountain paths not always easily discovered in our misty climate, it is probable he could not reach this for some hours.”
When Miss Daly concluded, Lady Eleanor and her daughter renewed their grateful acknowledgments for her thoughtful kindness. “These are sad themes by which to open our acquaintance,” said Lady Eleanor; “but it is among the prerogatives of friendship to share the pressure of misfortune, and Mr. Daly’s sister can be no stranger to ours.”
“Nor how undeserved they were,” added Miss Daly, gravely.
“Nay, which of us can dare say so much?” interrupted Lady Eleanor; “we may well have forgotten ourselves in that long career of prosperity we enjoyed,—for ours was, indeed, a happy lot! I need not speak of my husband to one who knew him once so well. Generous, frank, and noble-hearted as he always was,-his only failing the excessive confidence that would go on believing in the honesty of others, from the prompting of a spirit that stooped to nothing low or unworthy,—he never knew suspicion.” “True,” echoed Miss Daly, “he never did suspect!” There was such a plaintive sadness in her voice that it drew Helen’s eyes towards her; nor could all her efforts conceal a tear that trickled along her cheek.
“And to what an alternative are we now reduced!” continued Lady Eleanor, who, with all the selfishness of sorrow, loved to linger on the painful theme,—“to rejoice at separation, and to feel relieved in thinking that he is gone to peril life itself rather than endure the lingering death of a broken heart!”
“Yes, young lady,” said Miss Daly, turning towards Helen, “such are the recompenses of the most endearing affection, such the penalties of loving. Would you not almost say, ‘It were better to be such as I am, unloved, uncared for, without one to share a joy or grief with?’ I half think so myself,” added she, suddenly rising from her chair. “I can almost persuade myself that this load of life is easier borne when all its pressure is one’s own.”
“You are not about to leave us?” said Lady Eleanor, taking her hand affectionately.
“Yes,” replied she, smiling sadly, “when my heart has disburdened itself of an immediate care, I become but sorry company, and sometimes think aloud. How fortunate I have no secrets!—Bring my pony to the door,” said she, as Tate answered the summons of the bell.
“But wait at least for daylight,” said Helen, eagerly; “the storm is increasing, and the night is dark and starless. Remember what a road you ‘ve come.”
“I often ride at this hour and with no better weather,” said she, adjusting the folds of her habit; “and as to the road, Puck knows it too well to wander from the track, daylight or dark.”
“For our sakes, I entreat you not to venture till morning,” cried Lady Eleanor.
“I could not if I would,” said Miss Daly, steadily. “By to-morrow, at noon, I have an engagement at some distance hence, and much to arrange in the mean time. Pray do not ask me again. I cannot bear to refuse you, even in such a trifle; and as to me or my safety, waste not another thought about it. They who have so little to live for are wondrous secure from accident.”
“When shall we see you? Soon, I hope and trust!” exclaimed both mother and daughter together.
Miss Daly shook her head; then added hastily, “I never promise anything. I was a great castle-builder once, but time has cured me of the habit, and I do not like, even by a pledge, to forestall the morrow. Farewell, Lady Eleanor. It is better to see but little of me, and think the better, than grow weary of my waywardness on nearer acquaintance. Adieu, Miss Darcy; I am glad to have seen you; don’t forget me.” So saying, she pressed Helen’s hands to her lips; but ere she let them drop, she squeezed a letter into her grasp; the moment after, she was gone.
“Oh, then, I remember her the beauty wonst!” said Tate, as he closed the door, after peering out for some seconds into the dark night: “and proud she was too,—riding a white Arabian, with two servants in scarlet liveries after her! The world has quare changes; but hers is the greatest ever I knew!”
CHAPTER XIV. A TÊTE-À-TÊTE AND A LETTER
Long after Miss Daly’s departure, Lady Eleanor continued to discuss the eccentricity of her manners and the wilful abruptness of her address; for although deeply sensible and grateful for her kindness, she dwelt on every’ peculiarity of her appearance with a pertinacity that more than once surprised her daughter. Helen, indeed, was very far from being a patient listener, not only because she was more tolerant in her estimate of their visitor, but because she was eager to read the letter so secretly intrusted to her hands. A dread of some unknown calamity, some sad tidings of her father or Lionel, was ever uppermost in her thoughts, nor could she banish the impression that Miss Daly’s visit had another and very different object than that which she alleged to Lady Eleanor.
It may be reckoned among the well-known contrarieties of life, that our friends are never more disposed to be long-winded and discursive than at the very time we would give the world to be alone and to ourselves. With a most malicious intensity they seem to select that moment for indulging in all those speculations by which people while away the weary hours. In such a mood was Lady Eleanor Darcy. Not only did she canvass and criticise Miss Daly, as she appeared before them, but went off into long rambling reminiscences of all she had formerly heard about her; for although they had never met before, Miss Daly had been the reigning Belle of the West before her own arrival in Ireland.
“She must have been handsome, Helen, don’t you think so?” said she, at the end of a long enumeration of the various eccentricities imputed to her.
“I should say very handsome,” replied Helen.
“Scarcely feminine enough, perhaps,” resumed Lady Eleanor,—“the features too bold, the expression too decided; but this may have been the fault of a social tone, which required everything in exaggeration, and would tolerate nothing save in excess.”
“Yes, mamma,” said Helen, vaguely assenting to a remark she had not attended to.
“I never fancied that style, either in beauty or in manner,” continued Lady Eleanor. “It wants, in the first place, the great element of pleasing; it is not natural.”
“No, mamma!” rejoined Helen, mechanically as before.
“Besides,” continued Lady Eleanor, gratified at her daughter’s ready assent, “for one person to whom these mannerisms are becoming, there are at least a hundred slavish imitators ready to adopt without taste, and follow without discrimination. Now, Miss Daly was the fashion once. Who can say to what heresies she has given origin, to what absurdities in dress, in manner, and in bearing?”
Helen smiled, and nodded an acquiescence without knowing to what.
“There is one evil attendant on all this,” said Lady Eleanor, who, with the merciless ingenuity of a thorough poser, went on ratiocinating from her own thoughts; “one can rarely rely upon even the kindest intentions of people of this sort, so often are their best offices but mere passing, fitful impulses; don’t you think so?”
“Yes, mamma,” said Helen, roused by this sudden appeal to a more than usual acquiescence, while totally ignorant as to what.
“Then, they have seldom any discretion, even when they mean well.”
“No, mamma.”
“While they expect the most implicit compliance on your part with every scheme they have devised for your benefit.”
“Very true,” chimed in Helen, who assented at random.
“Sad alternative,” sighed Lady Eleanor, “between such rash friendship and the lukewarm kindness of our courtly cousin.”
“I think not!” said Helen, who fancied she was still following the current of her mother’s reflections.
“Indeed!” exclaimed Lady Eleanor, iu astonishment, while she looked at her daughter for an explanation.
“I quite agree with you, mamma,” cried Helen, blushing as she spoke, for she was suddenly recalled to herself.
“The more fortunate is the acquiescence, my dear,” said Lady Eleanor, dryly, “since it seems perfectly instinctive. I find, Helen, you have not been a very attentive listener, and as I conclude I must have been a very unamusing companion, I’ll even say good-night; nay, my sweet child, it is late enough not to seek excuse for weariness—goodnight.”
Helen blushed deeply; dissimulation was a very difficult task to her, and for a moment seemed more than her strength could bear. She had resolved to place the letter in her mother’s hands, when the thought flashed across her, that if its contents might occasion any sudden or severe shock, she would never forgive herself. This mental struggle, brief as it was, brought the tears to her eyes,—an emotion Lady Eleanor attributed to a different cause, as she said,—
“You do not suppose, my dearest Helen, that I am angry because your thoughts took a pleasanter path than my owu.”
“Oh, no,-no!” cried Helen, eagerly, “I know you are not. It is my own—” She stopped; another word would have revealed everything, and with an affectionate embrace she hurried from the room.
“Poor child!” exclaimed her mother; “the courage that sustained us both so long is beginning to fail her now; and yet I feel as if our trials were but commencing.”
While Lady Eleanor dwelt on these sad thoughts, Helen sat beside her bed weeping bitterly.
“How shall I bear up,” thought she, “if deprived of that confiding trust a mother’s love has ever supplied,—without one to counsel or direct me?”
Half fearing to open the letter, lest all her resolves should be altered by its contents, she remained a long time balancing one difficulty against another. Wearied and undecided, she turned at last to the letter itself, as if for advice. It was a strange hand, and addressed to “Miss Daly.” With trembling fingers she unfolded the paper, and read the writer’s name,—“Richard Forester.”
A flood of grateful tears burst forth as she read the words; a sense of relief from impending calamity stole over her mind, while she said, “Thank God! my father and Lionel—” She could say no more, for sobbing choked her utterance. The emotions, if violent, passed rapidly off; and as she wiped away her tears, a smile of hope lit up her features. At any other time she would have speculated long and carefully over the causes which made Forester correspond with Miss Daly, and by what right she herself should be intrusted with his letter. Now her thoughts were hurried along too rapidly for reflection. The vague dread of misfortune, so suddenly removed, suggested a sense of gratitude that thrilled through her heart like joy. In such a frame of mind she read the following lines:—
At Sea. My dear Miss Daly,-I cannot thank you enough for your letter, so full of kindness, of encouragement, and of hope. How much I stand in need of them! I have strictly followed every portion of your counsel,—would that I could tell you as successfully as implicitly! The address of this letter will, however, be the shortest reply to that question. I write these lines from the “Hermione” frigate. Yes, I am a volunteer in the expedition to the Mediterranean; and only think who is my commanding officer,—the Knight himself. I had enrolled myself under the name of Conway; but when called up on deck this morning for inspection, such was my surprise on seeing the Knight of Gwynne, or, as he is now called, Colonel Darcy, I almost betrayed myself. Fortunately, however, I escaped unnoticed,—a circumstance I believe I owe chiefly to the fact that several young men of family are also volunteers, so that my position attracted no unusual attention. It was a most anxious moment for me as the colonel came down the line, addressing a word here and there as he went; he stopped within one of me, and spoke for some seconds to a young fellow whose appearance indicated delicate health. How full of gentleness and benevolence were his words! But when he turned and fixed his eyes on me, my heart beat so quick, my head grew so dizzy, I thought I should have fainted. He remained at least half a minute in front of me, and then asked the orderly for my name—“Conway! Conway!” repeated he more than once. “A very old name. I hope you’ll do it credit, sir,” added he, and moved on,—how much to my relief I need not say. What a strange rencontre! Often as I wonder at the singular necessity that has made me a private soldier, all my astonishment is lost in thinking of the Knight of Gwynne’s presence amongst us; and yet he looks the soldier even as much as he did the country gentleman when I first saw him, and, strangely too, seems younger and more active than before. To see him here, chatting with the officers under his command, moving about, taking interest in everything that goes on, who would suspect the change of fortune that has befallen him! Not a vestige of discontent, not even a passing look of impatience on his handsome features; and yet, with this example before me, and the consciousness that my altered condition is nothing in comparison with his, I am low-spirited and void of hope! But a few weeks ago I would have thought myself the luckiest fellow breathing, if told that I were to serve under Colonel Darcy, and now I feel ashamed and abashed, and dread a recognition every time I see him. In good truth, I cannot forget the presumption that led me first to his acquaintance. My mind dwells on that unhappy mission to the West, and its consequences. My foolish vanity in supposing that I, a mere boy, uninformed, and without reflection, should be able to influence a man so much my superior in every way! and this, bad as it is, is the most favorable view of my conduct, for I dare not recall the dishonorable means by which I was to buy his support. Then, I think of my heedless and disreputable quarrel. What motives and what actions in the eyes of her whose affection I sought! How worthily am I punished for my presumption!
I told you that I strictly followed the advice of your last letter. Immediately on receiving it I wrote a few lines to my mother, entreating her permission to see and speak with her, and expressing an earnest hope that our interview would end in restoring me to the place I so long enjoyed in her affection. A very formal note, appointing the following day, was all the reply.
On arriving at Berkeley Square, and entering the drawing-room, I found, to my great astonishment, I will not say more, that a gentleman, a stranger to me, was already there, seated at the fire, opposite my mother, and with that easy air that bespoke his visit was not merely accidental, but a matter of pre-arrangement.
Whatever my looks might have conveyed, I know not, but I was not given the opportunity for a more explicit inquiry, when my mother, in her stateliest of manners, arose and said,—
“Richard, I wish to present you to my esteemed friend, Lord Netherby; a gentleman to whose kindness you are indebted for any favorable construction I can put upon your folly, and who has induced me to receive you here to-day.”
“If I knew, madam, that such influence had been necessary, I should have hesitated before I laid myself under so deep an obligation to his Lordship, to whose name and merits I confess myself a stranger.”
“I am but too happy, Captain Forester,” interposed the Earl, “if any little interest I possess in Lady Wallincourt’s esteem enables me to contribute to your reconciliation. I know the great delicacy of an interference, in a case like the present, and how officious and impertinent the most respectful suggestions must appear, when offered by one who can lay no claim, at least to your good opinion.”
A very significant emphasis on the word “your,” a look towards my mother, and a very meaning smile from her in reply, at once revealed to me what, till then, I had not suspected,—that his Lordship meditated a deeper influence over her Ladyship’s heart than the mere reconciliation of a truant son to her esteem.
“I believe, my Lord,” said I, hastily, and I fear not without some anger,—“I believe I should not have dared to decline your kind influence in my behalf, had I suspected the terms on which you would exert it. I really was not aware before that you possessed, so fully, her Ladyship’s confidence.”
“If you read the morning papers, Captain Forester,” said he, with the blandest smile, “you could scarcely avoid learning that my presence here is neither an intrusion nor an impertinence.”
“My dear mother,” cried I, forgetting all, save the long-continued grief by which my father’s memory was hallowed, “is this really the case?”
“I can forgive your astonishment,” replied she, with a look of anger, “that the qualities you hold so highly in your esteem should have met favor from one so placed and gifted as the Earl of Netherby.”
“Nay, madam; on the contrary. My difficulty is to think how any new proffer of attachment could find reception in a heart I fondly thought closed against such appeals; too full of its own memories of the past to profane the recollection by—”
I hesitated and stopped. Another moment, and I would have uttered a word which for worlds I would not have spoken.
My mother became suddenly pale as marble, and lay back in her chair as if faint and sick. His Lordship adjusted his neckcloth and his watch-chain, and walked towards the window, with an air of as much awkwardness as so very courtly a personage could exhibit.
“You see, my Lord,” said my mother,—and her voice trembled at every word,—“you see, I was right: I told you how much this interview would agitate and distress me.”
“But it need not, madam,” interposed I; “or, at all events, it may be rendered very brief. I sought an opportunity of speaking to you, in the hope that whatever impressions you may have received of my conduct in Ireland were either exaggerated or unjust; that I might convince you, however I may have erred in prudence or judgment, I have transgressed neither in honor nor good faith.”
“Vindications,” said my mother, “are very weak things in the face of direct facts. Did you, or did you not, resign your appointment on the viceroy’s staff—I stop not to ask with what scant courtesy—that you might be free to rove over the country, on some knight-errant absurdity? Did you, after having one disreputable quarrel in the same neighborhood, again involve yourself and your name in an affair with a notorious mob-orator and disturber, and thus become the ‘celebrity’ of the newspapers for at least a fortnight? And lastly, when I hoped, by absence from England, and foreign service, to erase the memory of these follies—to give them no harsher name,—did you not refuse the appointment, and without advice or permission sell out of the army altogether?”
“Without adverting to the motives, madam, you have so kindly attributed to me, I beg to say ‘yes’ to all your questions. I am no longer an officer in his Majesty’s service.”
“Nor any longer a member of my family, sir,” said my mother, passionately; “at least so far as the will rests with me. A gentleman so very independent in his principles is doubtless not less so in his circumstances. You are entitled to five thousand pounds only, by your father’s will: this, if I mistake not, you have received and spent many a day ago. I will not advert to what my original intentions in your behalf were; they are recorded, however, in this paper, which you, my Lord, have read.” Here her Ladyship drew forth a document, like a law-paper, while the Earl bowed a deep acquiescence, and muttered something like—“Very generous and noble-minded, indeed!”
“Yes, sir,” resumed my mother, “I had no other thought or object, save in establishing you in a position suitable to your name and family; you have thought fit to oppose my wishes on every point, and here I end the vain struggle.” So saying, she tore the paper in pieces, and threw the fragments into the fire.
A deep silence ensued, which I, for many reasons, had no inducement to break. The Earl coughed and hemmed three or four times, as though endeavoring to hit upon something that might relieve the general embarrassment, but my mother was again the first to speak.
“I have no doubt, sir, you have determined on some future career. I am not indiscreet enough to inquire what; but that you may not enter upon it quite unprovided, I have settled upon you the sum of four hundred pounds yearly. Do not mistake me, nor suppose that this act proceeds from any lingering hope on my part that you will attempt to retrace your false steps, and recover the lost place in my affection. I am too well acquainted with the family gift of determination, as it is flatteringly styled, to think so. You owe this consideration entirely to the kind interference of the Earl of Netherby. Nay, my Lord, it is but fair that you should have any merit the act confers, where you have incurred all the responsibility.”
“I will relieve his Lordship of both,” said I. “I beg to decline your Ladyship’s generosity and his Lordship’s kindness, with the self-same feeling of respect.”
“My dear Captain Forester, wait one moment,” said Lord Netherby, taking my arm. “Let me speak to you, even for a few moments.”
“You mistake him, my Lord,” said my mother, with a scornful smile, while she arose to leave the room,—“you mistake him much.”
“Pray hear me out,” said Lord Netherby, taking my hand in both his own. “It is no time, nor a case for any rash resolves,” whispered he; “Lady Wallincourt has been misinformed,—her mind has been warped by stories of one kind or other. Go to her, explain fully and openly everything.”
“Her Ladyship is gone, my Lord,” exclaimed I, stopping him.
Yes, she had left the room while we were yet speaking. This was my last adieu from my mother! I remember little more, though Lord Netherby detained me still some time, and spoke with much kindness; indeed, throughout, his conduct was graceful and good-natured.
Why should I weary you longer? Why speak of the long dreary night, and the longer day that followed this scene,—swayed by different impulses,-now hoping and fearing alternately,—not daring to seek counsel from my friends, because I well knew what worldly advice would be given,—I was wretched. In the very depth of my despondency, like a ray of sunlight darting through some crevice of a prisoner’s cell, came your own words to me, “Be a soldier in more than garb or name, be one in the generous ardor of a bold career. Let it be your boast that you started fairly in the race, and so distanced your competitors.” I caught at the suggestion with avidity. I was no more depressed or down-hearted. I felt as if, throwing off my load of care, a better and a brighter day was about to break for me; the same evening I left London for Plymouth, and became a volunteer.
Before concluding these lines, I would ask why you tell me no more of Miss Darcy than that “she is well, and, the reverse of her fortune considered, in spirits.” Am I to learn no more than that? Will you not say if my name is ever spoken by or before her? How am I remembered? Has time-have my changed fortunes softened her stern determination towards me? Would that I could know this,—would that I could divine what may lurk in her heart of compassionate pity for one who resigned all for her love, and lost! With all my gratitude for your kindness, when I well-nigh believed none remained in the world for me,
I am, yours in sincere affection,
Richard Forester.
I forgot to ask if you can read one strange mystery of this business, at least so the words seem to imply. Lord Netherby said, when endeavoring to dissuade me from leaving my mother’s house, “Remember, Captain Forester, that Lady Wallincourt’s prejudices regarding your Irish friends have something stronger than mere caprice to strengthen them. You must not ask her to forget as well as forgive, all at once.” Can you interpret this riddle for me? for although at the time it made little impression, it recurs to my mind now twenty times a day.
Here concluded Forester’s letter. A single line in pencil was written at the foot, and signed “M. D. “: “I am a bad prophet, or the volunteer will turn out better than the aide-de-camp.”
CHAPTER XV. A DINNER AT COM HEFFERNAN’S
When the Union was carried, and the new order of affairs in Ireland assumed an appearance of permanence, a general feeling of discontent began to exhibit itself in every class in the capital. The patriots saw themselves neglected by the Government, without having reaped in popularity a recompense for their independence. The mercantile interest perceived, even already, the falling off in trade from the removal of a wealthy aristocracy; and the supporters of the Minister, or such few as still lingered in Dublin, began to suspect how much higher terms they might have exacted for their adhesion, had they only anticipated the immensity of the sacrifice to which they contributed.
Save that comparatively small number who had bargained for English peerages and English rank, and had thereby bartered their nationality, none were satisfied.
Even the moderate men—that intelligent fraction who believe that no changes are fraught with one half the good or evil their advocates or opponents imagine—even they were disappointed on finding that the incorporation of the Irish Parliament with that of England was the chief element of the new measure, and no more intimate or solid Union contemplated. The shrewd men of every party saw not only how difficult would be the future government of the country, but that the critical moment was come which should decide into whose hands the chief influence would fall. Among these speculators on the future, Mr. Heffernan held a prominent place. No man knew better the secret machinery of office, none had seen more of that game, half fair, half foul, by which an administration is sustained. He knew, moreover, the character and capability of every public man in Ireland, had been privy to their waverings and hesitations, and even their bargains with the Crown; he knew where gratified ambition had rendered a new peer indifferent to a future temptation, and also where abortive negotiations had sowed the seeds of a lingering disaffection.
To construct a new party from these scattered elements—a party which, possessing wealth and station, had not yet tasted any of the sweets of patronage—was the task he now proposed to himself. By this party, of whom he himself was to be the organ, he hoped to control the Minister, and support him by turns. Of those already purchased by the Government, few would care to involve themselves once more in the fatigues of a public life. Many would gladly repose on the rewards of their victory; many would shrink from the obloquy their reappearance would inevitably excite. Mr. Heffernan had then to choose his friends either from that moderate section of politicians whom scruples of conscience or inferiority of ability had left un-bought, or the more energetic faction, suddenly called into existence by the success of the French Revolution, and of which O’Halloran was the leader. For many reasons his choice fell on the former. Not only because they possessed that standing and influence which, derived from property, would be most regarded in England, but that their direction and guidance would be an easier task; whereas the others, more numerous and more needy, could only be purchased by actual place or pension, while in O’Halloran Heffernan would always have a dangerous rival, who, if he played subordinate for a while, it would only be at the price of absolute rule hereafter.
From the moment Lord Castlereagh withdrew from Ireland, Mr. Heffernan commenced his intrigue,—at first by a tour of visits through the country, in which he contrived to sound the opinions of a great number of persons, and subsequently by correspondence, so artfully sustained as to induce many to commit themselves to a direct line of action which, when discussing, they had never speculated on seeing realized.
With a subtlety of no common kind, and an indefatigable industry, Heffernan labored in the cause during the summer and autumn, and with such success that there was scarcely a county in Ireland where he had not secured some leading adherent, while for many of the boroughs he had already entered into plans for the support of new candidates of his own opinions.
The views he put forward were simply these: Ireland can no longer be governed by an oligarchy, however powerful. It must be ruled either by the weight and influence of the country gentlemen, or left to the mercy of the demagogue. The gentry must be rewarded for their adhesion, and enabled to maintain their pre-eminence, by handing over to them the patronage, not in part or in fractions, but wholly and solely. Every civil appointment must be filled up by them,—the Church, the law, the revenue, the police, must all be theirs. “The great aristocracy,” said he, “have obtained the marquisates and earldoms; bishoprics and governments have rewarded their services. It is now our turn; and if our prizes be less splendid and showy, they are not devoid of some sterling qualities.
“To make Ireland ungovernable without us must be our aim and object,—to embarrass and confound every administration, to oppose the ministers, pervert their good objects, and exaggerate their bad. Pledged to no distinct line of acting, we can be patriotic when it suits us, and declaim on popular rights when nothing better offers. Acting in concert, and diffusing an influence in every county and town and corporation, what ministry can long resist us, or what government anxious for office would refuse to make terms with us? With station to influence society, wealth to buy the press, activity to watch and counteract our enemies, I see nothing which can arrest our progress. We must and will succeed.”
Such was the conclusion of a letter he wrote to one of his most trusted allies,—a letter written to invite his presence in Dublin, where a meeting of the leading men of the new party was to be held, and their engagements for the future determined upon.
For this meeting Heffernan made the greatest exertions, not only that it might include a great portion of the wealth and influence of the land, but that a degree of éclat and splendor should attend it, the more likely to attract notice from the secrecy maintained as to its object and intention. Many were invited on the consideration of the display their presence would make in the capital; and not a few were tempted by the opportunity for exhibiting their equipages and their liveries at a season when the recognized leaders of fashion were absent.
It is no part of our object to dwell on this well-known intrigue, one which at the time occupied no small share of public attention, and even excited the curiosity and the fears of the Government. Enough when we say that Mr. Heffernan’s disappointments were numerous and severe. Letters of apology, some couched in terms of ambiguous cordiality, others less equivocally cold, came pouring in for the last fortnight. The noble lord destined to fill the chair regretted deeply that domestic affairs of a most pressing nature would not permit of his presence. The baronet who should move the first resolution would be compelled to be absent from Ireland; the seconder was laid up with the gout. Scarcely a single person of influence had promised his attendance: the greater number had given vague and conditional replies, evidently to gain time and consult the feeling of their country neighbors.
These refusals and subterfuges were a sad damper to Mr. Heffernan’s hopes. To any one less sanguine, they would have led to a total abandonment of the enterprise. He, however, was made of sterner stuff, and resolved, if the demonstration could effect no more, it could at least be used as a threat to the Government,—a threat of not less power because its terrors were involved in mystery. With all these disappointments time sped on, the important day arrived, and the great room of the Rotunda, hired specially for the occasion, was crowded by a numerous assemblage, to whose proceedings no member of the public press was admitted. Notice was given that in due time a declaration, drawn up by a committee, would be published; but until then the most profound secrecy wrapped their objects and intentions.
The meeting, convened for one o’clock, separated at five; and, save the unusual concourse of carriages, and the spectacle of some liveries new to the capital, there seemed nothing to excite the public attention. No loud-tongued orator was heard from without, nor did a single cheer mark the reception of any welcome sentiment; and as the members withdrew, the sarcastic allusions of the mob intimated that they were supposed to be a new sect of “Quakers.” Heffernan’s carriage was the last to leave the door; and it was remarked, as he entered it, that he looked agitated and ill,—signs which few had ever remarked in him before. He drove rapidly home, where a small and select party of friends had been invited by him to dinner.
He made a hasty toilet, and entered the drawing-room a few moments after the first knock at the street-door announced the earliest guest. It was an old and intimate friend, Sir Giles St. George, a south-country baronet of old family, but small fortune, who for many years had speculated on Heffernan’s interest in his behalf. He was a shrewd, coarse man, who from eccentricity and age had obtained a species of moral “writ of ease,” absolving him from all observance of the usages in common among all well-bred people,—a privilege he certainly did not seem disposed to let rust from disuse.
“Well, Con,” said he, as he stood with his back to the fire, and his hands deeply thrust into his breeches-pockets,—“well, Con, your Convention has been a damnable failure. Where the devil did you get up such a rabble of briefless barristers, ungowned attorneys, dissenting ministers, and illegitimate sons? I’d swear, out of your seven hundred, there were not five-and-twenty possessed of a fifty-pound freehold,—not five who could defy the sheriff in their own county.”
Heffernan made no reply, but with arms crossed, and his head leaned forward, walked slowly up and down the room, while the other resumed,—
“As for old Killowen, who filled the chair, that was enough to damn the whole thing. One of King James’s lords, forsooth!—why, man, what country gentleman of any pretension could give precedence to a fellow like that, who neither reads, writes, nor speaks the King’s English—and your great gun, Mr. Hickman O’Reilly—”
“False-hearted scoundrel!” muttered Heffernan, half aloud.
“Faith he may be, but he’s the cleverest of the pack. I liked his speech well. There was good common sense in his asking for some explicit plan of proceeding,—what you meant to do, and how to do it. Eh, Con, that was to the point.”
“To the point!” repeated Heffernan, scornfully; “yes, as the declaration of an informer, that he will betray his colleagues, is to the point.”
“And then his motion to admit the reporters,” said St. George, as with a malignant pleasure he continued to suggest matter of annoyance.
“He ‘s mistaken, however,” said Heffernan, with a sarcastic bitterness that came from his heart. “The day for rewards is gone by. He ‘ll never get the baronetcy by supporting the Government in this way. It is the precarious, uncertain ally they look more after. There is consummate wisdom, Giles, in not saying one’s last word. O’Reilly does not seem aware of that. Here come Godfrey and Hume,” said he, as he looked out of the window. “Burton has sent an apology.”
“And who is our sixth?”
“O’Reilly—and here’s his carriage. See how the people stare admiringly at his green liveries; they scarcely guess that the owner is meditating a change of color. Well, Godfrey, in time for once. Why, Robert, you seem quite fagged with your day’s exertion. Ah! Mr. O’Reilly, delighted to find you punctual. Let me present you to my old friend Sir Giles St. George. I believe, gentlemen, you need no introduction to each other. Burton has disappointed us; so we may order dinner at once.”
As Mr. Heffernan took the head of the table, not a sign of his former chagrin remained to be seen. An air of easy conviviality had entirely replaced his previous look of irritation, and in his laughing eye and mellow voice there seemed the clearest evidence of a mind perfectly at ease, and a spirit well disposed to enjoy the pleasures of the board. Of his guests, Godfrey was a leading member of the Irish bar, a man of good private fortune and a large practice, who, out of whim rather than from any great principle, had placed himself in contiuual opposition to the Government, and felt grievously injured and affronted when the minister, affecting to overlook his enmity, offered him a silk gown. Hume was a Commissioner of Customs, and had been so for some thirty years; his only ambition in life being to retire on his full salary, having previously filled his department with his sons and grandsons. The gentle remonstrances of the Secretary against his plan had made him one of the disaffected, but without courage to avow or influence to direct his animosity. Of Mr. O’Reilly the reader needs no further mention. Such was the party who now sat at a table most luxuriously supplied; for although Heffeman was very far from a frequent inviter, yet his dinners were admirably arranged, and the excellence of his wine was actually a mystery among the bons vivants of the capital. The conversation turned of course upon the great event of the day; but so artfully was the subject managed by Heffeman that the discussion took rather the shape of criticism on the several speakers, and their styles of delivery, than on the matter of the meeting itself.
“How eager the Castle folks will be to know all about it!” said Godfrey. “Cooke is, I hear, in a sad taking to learn the meaning of the gathering.”
“I fancy, sir,” said St. George, “they are more indifferent than you suppose. A meeting held by individuals of a certain rank and property, and convened with a certain degree of ostentation, can scarcely ever be formidable to a government.”
“You forget the Volunteers,” said Heffernan.
“No, I remember their assembling well enough, and a very absurd business they made of it. The Bishop of Downe was the only man of nerve amongst them; and as for Lord Charlemont, the thought of an attainder was never out of his head till the whole association was disbanded.”
“They were very formidable, indeed,” said Heffernan, gravely. “I can assure you that the Government were far more afraid of their defenders than of the French.”
“A government that is ungrateful enough to neglect its supporters,” chimed in Hume, “men that have spent their best years in its service, can scarcely esteem itself very secure. In the department I belong to myself, for instance—”
“Yours is a very gross case,” interrupted Heffernan, who from old experience knew what was coming, and wished to arrest it.
“Thirty-four years, come November next, have I toiled as a commissioner.”
“Unpaid!” exclaimed St. George, with a well-simulated horror,—“unpaid!”
“No, sir; not without my salary, of course. I never heard of any man holding an office in the Revenue for the amusement it might afford him. Did you, Godfrey?”
“As for me,” said the lawyer, “I spurn their patronage. I well know the price men pay for such favors.”
“What object could it be to you,” said Heffernan, “to be made Attorney-General or placed on the bench, a man independent in every seuse? So I said to Castlereagh, when he spoke on the subject: ‘Never mind Godfrey,’ said I, ‘he’ll refuse your offers; you’ll only offend him by solicitation;’ and when he mentioned the ‘Rolls’—”
Here Heffernan paused, and filled his glass leisurely. An interruption contrived to stimulate Godfrey’s curiosity, and which perfectly succeeded, as he asked in a voice of tremulous eagerness,—
“Well, what did you say?”
“Just as I replied before,—‘he ‘ll refuse you.’”
“Quite right, perfectly right; you have my unbounded gratitude for the answer,” said Godfrey, swallowing two bumpers as rapidly as he could fill them.
“Very different treatment from what I met,—an old and tried supporter of the party,” said Hume, turning to O’Reilly and opening upon him the whole narrative of his long-suffering neglect.
“It’s quite clear, then,” said St. George, “that we are agreed,—the best thing for us would be a change of Ministry.”
“I don’t think so at all,” interposed Heffernan.
“Why, Con,” interrupted the baronet, “they should have you at any price,—however these fellows have learned the trick,—the others know nothing about it You ‘d be in office before twenty-four hours.”
“So I might to-morrow,” said Heffernan. “There’s scarcely a single post of high emolument and trust that I have not been offered and refused. The only things I ever stipulated for in all my connection with the Government were certain favors for my personal friends.” Here he looked significantly towards O’Reilly; but the glance was intercepted by the commissioner, who cried out,—“Well, could they say I had no claim? Could they deny thirty-four years of toil and slavery?”
“And in the case for which I was most interested,” resumed Heffernan, not heeding the interruption, “the favor I sought would have been more justly bestowed from the rank and merits of the party than as a recompense for any sen-ices of mine.”
“I won’t say that, Heffernan,” said Hume, with a look of modesty, who with the most implicit good faith supposed he was the party alluded to; “I won’t go that far; but I will and must say, that after four-and-thirty years as a commissioner—”
“A man must have laid by a devilish pretty thing for the rest of his life,” said St. George, who felt all the bitterness of a narrow income augmented by the croaking complaints of the well-salaried official.
“Well, I hope better days are coming for all of us,” said Heffernan, desirous of concluding the subject ere it should take an untoward turn.
“You have got a very magnificent seat in the west, sir,” said St. George, addressing O’Reilly, who during the whole evening had done little more than assent or smile concurrence with the several speakers.
“The finest thing in Ireland,” interrupted Heffernan.
“Nay, that is saying too much,” said O’Reilly, with a look of half-real, half-affected bashfulness. “The abbey certainly stands well, and the timber is well grown.”
“Are you able to see Clew Bay from the small drawing-room still?—for I remember remarking that the larches on the side of the glen would eventually intercept the prospect.”
“You know the Abbey, then?” asked O’Reilly, forgetting to answer the question addressed to him.
“Oh, I knew it well. My family is connected-distantly, I believe—with the Darcys, and in former days we were intimate. A very sweet place it was; I am speaking of thirty years ago, and of course it must have improved since that.”
“My friend here has given it every possible opportunity,” said Heffernan, with a courteous inclination of the head.
“I’ve no doubt of it,” said St. George; “but neither money nor bank securities will make trees grow sixty feet in a twelvemonth. The improvements I allude to were made by Maurice Darcy’s father; he sunk forty thousand pounds in draining, planting, subsoiling, and what not. He left a rent-charge in his will to continue his plans; and Maurice and his son—what’s the young fellow called?—Lionel, isn’t it?—well, they are, or rather they were, bound to expend a very heavy sum annually on the property.”
A theme less agreeable to O’Reilly’s feelings could scarcely have been started; and though Heffernan saw as much, he did not dare to interrupt it suddenly, for fear of any unpalatable remark from St. George. Whether from feeling that the subject was a painful one, or that he liked to indulge his loquacity in detailing various particulars of the Darcys and their family circumstances, the old man went on without ceasing,—now narrating some strange caprice of an ancestor in one century, now some piece of good fortune that occurred to another. “You know the old prophecy in the family, I suppose, Mr. O’Reilly?” said he, “though, to be sure, you are not very likely to give it credence.”
“I scarcely can say I remember what you allude to.”
“By Jove, I thought every old woman in the west would have told it to you. How is this the doggerel runs—ay, here it is,—
‘A new name in this house shall never begin
Till twenty-one Darcys have died in Gwynne.’
Now, they say that, taking into account all of the family who have fallen in battle, been lost at sea, and so on, only eleven of the stock died at the Abbey.”
Although O’Reilly affected to smile at the old rhyme, his cheek became deadly pale, and his hand shook as he lifted the glass to his lips. It was no vulgar sense of fear, no superstitious dread that moved his cold and calculating spirit, but an emotion of suppressed anger that the ancient splendor of the Darcys should be thus placed side by side with his own unhonored and unknown family.
“I don’t think I ever knew one of these good legends have even so much of truth,—though the credit is now at an end,” said Heffernau, gayly.
“I’ll engage old Darcy’s butler wouldn’t agree with you,” replied St. George. “Ay, and Maurice himself had a great dash of old Irish superstition in him, for a clever, sensible fellow as he was.”
“It only remains for my friend here, then, to fit up a room for the Darcys and invite them to die there at their several conveniences,” said Con, laughing. “I see no other mode of fulfilling the destiny.”
“There never was a man played his game worse,” resumed St. George, who with a pertinacious persistence continued the topic. “He came of age with a large unencumbered estate, great family influence, and a very fair share of abilities. It was the fashion to say he had more, but I never thought so; and now, look at him!”
“He had very heavy losses at play,” said Heffernan, “certainly.”
“What if he had? They never could have materially affected a fortune like his. No, no. I believe ‘Honest Tom’ finished him,—raising money to pay off old debts, and then never clearing away the liabilities. What a stale trick, and how invariably it succeeds!”
“You do not seem, sir, to take into account an habitually expensive mode of living,” insinuated O’Reilly, quietly.
“An item, of course, but only an item in the sum total,” replied St. George. “No man can eat and drink above ten thousand a year, and Darcy had considerably more. No; he might have lived as he pleased, had he escaped the acquaintance of honest Tom Gleeson. By the by, Con, is there any truth in the story they tell about this fellow, and that he really was more actuated by a feeling of revenge towards Darcy than a desire for money?”
“I never heard the story. Did you, Mr. O’Reilly?” asked Heffernan.
“Never,” said O’Reilly, affecting an air of unconcern, very ill consorting with his pale cheek and anxious eye.
“The tale is simply this: that, as Gleeson waxed wealthy, and began to assume a position in life, he one day called on the Knight to request him to put his name up for ballot at ‘Daly’s.’ Darcy was thunderstruck, for it was in those days when the Club was respectable; but still the Knight had tact enough to dissemble his astonishment, and would doubtless have got through the difficulty had it not been for Bagenal Daly, who was present, and called out, ‘Wait till Tuesday, Maurice, for I mean to propose M’Cleery, the breeches-maker, and then the thing won’t seem so remarkable!’ Gleeson smiled and slipped away, with an oath to his own heart, to be revenged on both of them. If there be any truth in the story, he did ruin Daly, by advising some money-lender to buy up all his liabilities.”
“I must take the liberty to correct you, sir,” said O’Reilly, actually trembling with anger. “If your agreeable anecdote has no better foundation than the concluding hypothesis, its veracity is inferior to its ingenuity. The gentleman you are pleased to call a money-lender is my father; the conduct you allude to was simply the advance of a large sum on mortgage.”
“Foreclosed, like Darcy’s, perhaps,” said St. George, his irascible face becoming blood-red with passion.
“Come, come, Giles, you really can know nothing of the subject you are talking of; besides, to Mr. O’Reilly the matter is a personal one.”
“So it is,” muttered St. George; “and if report speaks truly, as unpleasant as personal.”
This insulting remark was not heard by O’Reilly, who was deeply engaged in explaining to the lawyer beside him the minute legal details of the circumstance.
“Shrewd a fellow as Gleeson was,” said St. George, interrupting O’Reilly, by addressing the lawyer, “they say he has left some flaw open in the matter, and that Darcy may recover a very large portion of the lost estate.”
“Yes; if for instance this bond should be destroyed. He might move in Equity—”
“He ‘d move heaven and earth, sir, if it’s Bagenal Daly you mean,” said St. George, who had stimulated his excitement by drinking freely. “Some will tell you that he is a steadfast, firm friend; but I ‘ll vouch for it, a more determined enemy never drew breath.”
“Very happily for the world we live in, sir,” said O’Reilly, “there are agencies more powerful than the revengeful and violent natures of such men as Mr. Daly.”
“He’s every jot as quick-sighted as he’s determined; and when he wagered a hogshead of claret that Darcy would one day sit again at the head of his table in Gwynne Abbey—”
“Did he make such a bet?” asked O’Reilly, with a faint laugh.
“Yes; he walked down the club-room, and offered it to any one present, and none seemed to fancy it; but young Kelly, of Kildare, who, being a new member just come in, perhaps thought there might be some éclat in booking a bet with Bagenal Daly.”
“Would you like to back his opinion, sir?” said O’Reilly, with a simulated softness of voice; “or although I rarely wager, I should have no objection to convenience you here, leaving the amount entirely at your option.”
“Which means,” said St. George, as his eyes sparkled with wine and passion, “that the weight of your purse is to tilt the beam against that of my opinion. Now, I beg leave to tell you—”
“Let me interrupt you, Giles; I never knew my Burgundy disagree with any man before, but I d smash every bottle of it to-morrow if I thought it could make so pleasant a fellow so wrong-headed and unreasonable. What say you if we qualify it with some cognac and water?”
“Maurice Darcy is my relative,” said St. George, pushing his glass rudely from him, “and I have yet to learn the unreasonableness of wishing well to a member of one’s own family. His father and mine were like brothers! Ay, by Jove! I wonder what either of them would think of the changes time has wrought in their sons’ fortunes.” His voice dropped into a low, muttering sound, while he mumbled on, “One a beggar and an exile, the other”—here his eye twinkled with a malicious intelligence as he glanced around the board—“the other the guest of Con Heffernan.” He arose as he spoke, and fortunately the noise thus created prevented his words being overheard. “You ‘re right, Con,” said he, “that Burgundy has been too much for me. The wine is unimpeachable, notwithstanding.”
The others rose also; although pressed in all the customary hospitality of the period to have “one bottle more,” they were resolute in taking leave, doubtless not sorry to escape the risk of any unpleasant termination to the evening’s entertainment.
The lawyer and the commissioner agreed to see St. George home; for although long seasoned to excesses, age had begun to tell upon him, and his limbs were scarcely more under control than his tongue. O’Reilly had dropped his handkerchief, he was not sure whether in the drawing or the dinner room, and this delayed him a few moments behind the rest; and although he declared, at each moment, the loss of no consequence, and repeated his “good-night,” Heffernan held his hand and would not suffer him to leave.
“Try under Mr. O’Reilly’s chair, Thomas.—Singular specimen of a by-gone day, the worthy baronet!” said he, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Would you believe it, he and Darcy have not been on speaking terms for thirty years, and yet how irritable be showed himself in his behalf!”
“He seems to know something of the family affairs, however,” said O’Reilly, cautiously.
“Not more than club gossip; all that about Daly and his wager is a week old.”
“I hope my father may never hear it,” said O’Reilly, compassionately; “he has all the irritability of age, and these reports invariably urge him on to harsh measures, which, by the least concession, he would never have pursued. The Darcys, indeed, have to thank themselves for any severity they have experienced at our hands. Teasing litigation and injurious reports of us have met all our efforts at conciliation.”
“A compromise would have been much better, and more reputable for all parties,” said Heffernan, as he turned to stir the fire, and thus purposely averted his face while making the remark.
“So it would,” said O’Reilly, hurriedly; then stopping abruptly short, he stammered out, “I don’t exactly know what you mean by the word, but if it implies a more amicable settlement of all disputed points between us, I perfectly agree with you.”
Heffernan never spoke: a look of cool self-possession and significance was all his reply. It seemed to say, “Don’t hope to cheat me; however, you may rely on my discretion.”
“I declare my handkerchief is in my pocket all this while,” said O’Reilly, trying to conceal his rising confusion with a laugh. “Good-night, once more—you ‘re thinking of going over to England to-morrow evening?”
“Yes, if the weather permits, I ‘ll sail at seven. Can I be of any service to you?”
“Perhaps so: I may trouble you with a commission. Good-night.”
“So, Mr. Hickman, you begin to feel the hook! Now let us see if we cannot play the fish without letting him know the weakness of the tackle!” said Heffernan, as he looked after him, and then slowly retraced his steps to the now deserted drawing-room.
“How frequently will chance play the game more skilfully for us than all our cleverness!” said he, while he paced the room alone. “That old bear, St. George, who might have ruined everything, has done me good service. O’Reilly’s suspicions are awakened, his fears are aroused; could I only find a clew to his terror, I could hold him as fast by his fears as by this same baronetcy. This baronetcy,” added he, with a sneering laugh, “that I am to negotiate for, and—be refused!”
With this sentiment of honest intentions on his lips, Mr. Heffernan retired to rest, and, if this true history is to be credited, to sleep soundly till morning.
CHAPTER XVI. PAUL DEMPSEY’S WALK
With the most eager desire to accomplish his mission, Paul Dempsey did not succeed in reaching “The Corvy” until late on the day after Miss Daly’s visit. He set out originally by paths so secret and circuitous that he lost his way, and was obliged to pass his night among the hills, where, warned by the deep thundering of the sea that the cliffs were near, he was fain to await daybreak ere he ventured farther. The trackless waste over which his way led was no bad emblem of poor Paul’s mind, as, cowering beneath a sand-hill, he shivered through the long hours of night. Swayed by various impulses, he could determine on no definite line of action, and wavered and doubted and hesitated, till his very brain was addled by its operations.
At one moment he was disposed, like good Launcelot Gobbo, to “run for it,” and, leaving Darcy and all belonging to him to their several fates, to provide for his own safety; when suddenly a dim vision of meeting Maria Daly in this world or the next, and being called to account for his delinquency, routed such determinations. Then he revelled in the glorious opportunity for gossip afforded by the whole adventure. How he should astonish Coleraine and its neighborhood by his revelations of the Knight and his family! Gossip in all its moods and tenses, from the vague indicative of mere innuendo, to the full subjunctive of open defamation! Not indeed that Mr. Dempsey loved slander for itself; on the contrary, his temperament was far more akin to kindliness than its opposite; but the passion for retailing one’s neighbor’s foibles or misfortunes is an impulse that admits no guidance; and as the gambler would ruin his best friend at play, so would the professed gossip calumniate the very nearest and dearest to him on earth. There are in the social as in the mercantile world characters who never deal in the honest article of commerce, but have a store of damaged, injured, or smuggled goods, to be hawked about surreptitiously, and always to be sold in the “strictest secrecy.” Mr. Dempsey was a pedler in this wise, and, if truth must be told, he did not dislike his trade.
And yet, at moments, thoughts of another and more tender kind were wafted across Paul’s mind, not resting indeed long enough to make any deep impression, but still leaving behind them, as pleasant thoughts always will, little twilights of happiness. Paul had been touched—a mere graze, skin deep, but still touched—by Helen Darcy’s beauty and fascinations. She had accompanied him more than once on the piano while he sang, and whether the long-fringed eyelashes and the dimpled cheek had done the mischief, or that the thoughtful tact with which she displayed Paul’s good notes and glossed over his false ones had won his gratitude, certain is it he had already felt a very sensible regard for the young lady, and more than once caught himself, when thinking about her, speculating on the speedy demise of Bob Dempsey, of Dempsey’s Grove, and all the consequences that might ensue therefrom.
If the enjoyment Mr. Dempsey’s various peculiarities afforded Helen suggested on her part the semblance of pleasure in his society, Paul took these indications all in his own favor, and even catechized himself how far he might be deemed culpable in winning the affections of a charming young lady, so long as his precarious condition forbid all thought of matrimony. Now, however, that he knew who the family really were, such doubts were much allayed; for, as he wisely remarked to himself, “Though they are ruined, there ‘s always nice picking in the wreck of an Indiaman!” Such were the thoughts by which his way was beguiled, when late in the afternoon he reached “The Corvy.”
Lady Eleanor and her daughter were out walking when Mr. Dempsey arrived, and, having cautiously reconnoitred the premises, ventured to approach the door. All was quiet and tranquil about the cottage; so, reassured by this, he peered through the window into the large hall, where a cheerful fire now blazed and shed a mellow glow over the strange decorations of the chamber. Mr. Dempsey had often desired an opportunity of examining these curiosities at his leisure. Not indeed prompted thereto by any antiquarian taste, but, from a casual glance at the inscriptions, he calculated on the amount of private history of the Dalys he should obtain. Stray and independent facts, it is true, but to be arranged by the hand of a competent and clever commentator.
With cautious hand he turned the handle of the door and entered.
There he stood, in the very midst of the coveted objects; and never did humble bookworm gaze on the rich titles of an ample library with more enthusiastic pleasure. He drew a long breath to relieve his overburdened heart, and glutted his eyes in ecstasy on every side. Enthusiasm takes its tone from individuality, and doubtless Mr. Dempsey felt at that moment something as Belzoni might, when, unexpectedly admitted within some tomb of the Pyramids, he found himself about to unravel some secret history of the Pharaohs.
“Now for it,” said he, half aloud; “let us do the thing in order; and first of all, what have we here?” He stooped and read an inscription attached to a velvet coat embroidered with silver,—
“Coat worn by B. D. in his duel with Colonel Matthews,—62,—the puncture under the sword-arm being a tierce outside the guard; a very rare point, and which cost the giver seriously.”
“He killed Matthews, of course,” added Dempsey; “the passage can mean nothing else, so let us be accurate as to fact and date.”
So saying, he proceeded to note down the circumstance in a little memorandum-book. “So!” added he, as he read his note over; “now for the next. What can this misshapen lump of metal mean?”
“A piece of brute gold, presented with twelve female slaves by the chiefs of Doolawochyeekeka on B. D.‘s assuming the sovereignty of the island.”
“Brute gold,” said Mr. Dempsey; “devilish little of the real thing about it, I’ll be sworn! I suppose the ladies were about equally refined and valuable.”
“Glove dropped by the Infanta Donna Isidore within the arena at Madrid, a few moments after Ruy Peres da Castres was gored to death.”
A prolonged low whistle from Mr. Dempsey was the only comment he made on this inscription; while he stooped to examine the fragment of a bull’s horn, from which a rag of scarlet cloth was hanging. The inscription ran, “Portion of horn broken as the bull fell against the barrier of the circus. The cloth was part of Da Castres’ vest.”
A massive antique helmet, of immense size and weight, lay on the floor beside this. It was labelled, “Casque of Rudolf v. Hapsbourg, presented to B. D. after the tilt at Regensburg by Edric Conrad Wilhelm Kur Furst von Bavera, a.d. 1750.”
A splendid goblet of silver gilt, beautifully chased and ornamented, was inscribed on the metal as being the gift of the Doge of Venice to his friend Bagenal Daly; and underneath was written on a card, “This cup was drained to the bottom at a draught by B. D. after a long and deep carouse, the liquor strong ‘Vino di Cypro.’ The Doge tried it and failed; the mark within shows how far he drank.”
“By Jove! what a pull!” exclaimed Dempsey, who, as he peered into the capacious vessel, looked as if he would not object to try his own prowess at the feat.
Wonderment at this last achievement seemed completely to have taken possession of Mr. Dempsey; for while his eyes ranged over weapons of every strange form and shape,—armor, idols, stuffed beasts and birds,—they invariably came back to the huge goblet with an admiring wonder that showed that here at least there was an exploit whose merits he could thoroughly appreciate.
“A half-gallon can is nothing to it!” muttered he, as he replaced it on its bracket.
The reflection was scarcely uttered, when the quick tramp of a horse and the sound of wheels without startled him. He hastened to the window just in time to perceive a jaunting-car drive up to the wicket, from which three men descended. Two were common-looking fellows in dark upper coats and glazed hats; the third, better dressed, and with a half-gentlemanlike air, seemed the superior. He threw off a loose travelling-coat, and discovered, to Mr. Dempsey’s horror, the features of his late patient at Larne, the sheriff’s officer from Dublin. Yes, there was no doubt about it. That smart, conceited look, the sharp and turned-up nose, the scrubby whisker, proclaimed him as the terrible Anthony Nickie, of Jervas Street, a name which Mr. Dempsey had read on his portmanteau before guessing how its owner was concerned in his own interests.
What a multitude of terrors jostled each other in his mind as the men approached the door, and what resolves did he form and abandon in the same moment! To escape by the rear of the house while the enemy was assailing the front, to barricade the premises and stand a siege, to arm himself—and there was a choice of weapons—and give battle, were all rapid impulses no sooner conceived than given up. A loud summons of the door-bell announced his presence; and ere the sounds died away, Tate’s creaking footstep and winter cough resounded along the corridor. Mr. Dempsey threw a last despairing glance around, and the thought flashed across him, how happily would he exchange his existence with any of the grim images and uncouth shapes that grinned and glared on every side, ay, even with that saw-mouthed crocodile that surmounted the chimney! Quick as his eye traversed the chamber, he fancied that the savage animals were actually enjoying his misery, and Sandy’s counterpart appeared to show a diabolical glee at his wretched predicament. It was at this instant he caught sight of the loose folds of the Indian blanket, which enveloped Bagenal Daly’s image. The danger was too pressing for hesitation; he stepped into the canoe, and cowering down under the warlike figure, awaited his destiny. Scarcely had the drapery closed around him when Tate admitted the new arrival.
“‘The Corvy? ‘” said Mr. Nickie to the old butler, who with decorous ceremony bowed low before him. “‘The Corvy,’ ain’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Tate.
“All right, Mac,” resumed Nickie, turning to the elder of his two followers, who had closely dogged him to the door. “Bring that carpet-bag and the small box off the car, and tell the fellow he ‘ll have time to feed his horse at that cabin on the road-side.”
He added something in a whisper, too low for Tate to hear, and then, taking the carpet-bag, he flung it carelessly in a corner, while he walked forward and deposited the box on the table before the fire.
“His honor is coming to dine, maybe?” asked Tate, respectfully; for old habit of his master’s hospitality had made the question almost a matter of course, while age had so dimmed his eyesight that even Anthony Nickie passed with him for a gentleman.
“Coming to dine,” repeated Nickie, with a coarse laugh; “that’s a bargain there ‘s always two words to, my old boy. I suppose you ‘ve heard it is manners to wait to be asked, eh?—without,” added he, after a second’s pause,—“without I ‘m to take this as an invitation.”
“I believe your honor might, then,” said Tate, with a smile. “‘Tis many a one I kept again the family came home for dinner, and sorrow word of it they knew till they seen them dressed in the drawing-room! And the dinner-table!” said Tate, with a sigh, half in regret over the past, half preparing himself with a sufficiency of breath for a lengthened oration,-“the dinner-table! it’s wishing it I am still! After laying for ten, or maybe twelve, his honor would come in and say, ‘Tate, we ‘ll be rather crowded here, for here ‘s Sir Gore Molony and his family. You ‘ll have to make room for five more.’ Then Miss Helen would come springing in with, ‘Tate, I forgot to say Colonel Martin and his officers are to be here at dinner.’ After that it would be my lady herself, in her own quiet way, ‘Mr. Sullivan,’-she nearly always called me that,—‘could n’t you contrive a little space here for Lady Burke and Miss MacDonnel? But the captain beat all, for he ‘d come in after the soup was removed, with five or six gentlemen from the hunt, splashed and wet up to their necks; over he ‘d go to the side-table, where I ‘d have my knives and forks, all beautiful, and may I never but he ‘d fling some here, others there, till he ‘d clear a space away, and then he’d cry, ‘Tate, bring back the soup, and set some sherry here.’ Maybe that wasn’t the table for noise, drinking wine with every one at the big table, and telling such wonderful stories that the servants did n’t know what they were doing, listening to them. And the master—the heavens be about him!—sending me over to get the names of the gentlemen, that he might ask them to take wine with him. Oh, dear—oh, dear, I ‘m sure I used to think my heart was broke with it; but sure it’s nigher breaking now that it’s all past and over.”
“You seem to have had very jolly times of it in those days,” said Nickie.
“Faix, your honor might say so if you saw forty-eight sitting down to dinner every day in the parlor for seven weeks running; and Master Lionel—the captain that is—at the head of another table in the library, with twelve or fourteen more,—nice youths they wor!”
While Tate continued his retrospections, Mr. Nickie had unlocked his box, and cursorily throwing a glance over some papers, he muttered to himself a few words, and then added aloud,—“Now for business.”
CHAPTER XVII. MR. ANTHONY NICKIE, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW.
We have said that Mr. Dempsey had barely time to conceal himself when the door was opened,—so narrow indeed was his escape, that had the new arrival been a second sooner, discovery would have been inevitable; as it was, the pictorial Daly and Sandy rocked violently to and fro, making their natural ferocity and grimness something even more terrible than usual. Mr. Nickie remarked nothing of this. His first care was to divest himself of certain travelling encumbrances, like one who proposes to make a visit of some duration, and then, casting a searching look around the premises, he proceeded,—
“Now for Mr. Darcy—”
“If ye ‘r maning the Knight of Gwynne, sir, his honor—”
“Well, is his honor at home?” said the other, interrupting with a saucy laugh.
“No, sir,” said Tate, almost overpowered at the irreverence of his questioner.
“When do you expect him, then,—in an hour or two hours?”
“He ‘s in England,” said Tate, drawing a long breath.
“In England! What do you mean, old fellow? He has surely not left this lately?”
“Yes, sir, ‘twas the King sent for him, I heerd the mistress say.”
A burst of downright laughter from the stranger stopped poor Tate’s explanation.
“Why, it’s you his Majesty ought to have invited,” cried Mr. Nickie, wiping his eyes, “you yourself, man; devilish fit company for each other you ‘d be.”
Poor Tate had not the slightest idea of the grounds on which the stranger suggested his companionship for royalty, but he was not the less insulted at the disparagement of his master thus implied.
“‘T is little I know about kings or queens,” growled out the old man, “but they must be made of better clay than ever I seen yet, or they ‘re not too good company for the Knight of Gwynne.”
After a stare for some seconds, half surprise, half insolence, Nickie said, “You can tell me, perhaps, if this cottage is called ‘The Corvy’?”
“Ay, that’s the name of it.”
“The property of one Bagenal Daly, Esquire, isn’t it?”
Tate nodded an assent.
“Maybe he is in England too,” continued Nickie. “Perhaps it was the Queen sent for him,—he ‘s a handsome man, I suppose?”
“Faix, you can judge for yourself,” said Tate, “for there he is, looking at you this minute.”
Nickie turned about hastily, while a terrible fear shot through him that his remarks might have been heard by the individual himself; for, though a stranger to Daly personally, he was not so to his reputation for hare-brained daring and rashness, nor was it till he had stared at the wooden representative for some seconds that he could dispel his dread of the original.
“Is that like him?” asked he, affecting a sneer.
“As like as two pays,” said Tate, “barring about the eyes; Mr. Daly’s is brighter and more wild-looking. The Blessed Joseph be near us!” exclaimed the old man, crossing himself devoutly, “one would think the crayture knew what we were saying. Sorra lie in ‘t, there ‘s neither luck nor grace in talking about you!”
This last sentiment, uttered in a faint voice, was called forth by an involuntary shuddering of poor Mr. Dempsey, who, feeling that the whole scrutiny of the party was directed towards his hiding-place, trembled so violently that the plumes nodded, and the bone necklace jingled with the motion.
While Mr. Nickie attributed these signs to the wind, he at the same time conceived a very low estimate of poor Tate’s understanding,—an impression not altogether un-warranted by the sidelong and stealthy looks which he threw at the canoe and its occupants.
“You seem rather afraid of Mr. Daly,” said he, with a sneering laugh.
“And so would you be, too, if he was as near you as that chap is,” replied Tate, sternly. “I ‘ve known braver-looking men than either of us not like to stand before him. I mind the day—”
Tate-s reminiscences were brought to a sudden stop by perceiving his mistress and Miss Darcy approaching the cottage; and hastening forward, he threw open the door, while by way of introduction he said,—
“A gentleman for the master, my Lady.”
Lady Eleanor flushed up, and as suddenly grew pale. She guessed at once the man and his errand.
“The Knight of Gwynne is from home, sir,” said she, in a voice her efforts could not render firm.
“I understand as much, madam,” said Nickie, who was struggling to recover the easy self-possession of his manner with the butler, but whose awkwardness increased at every instant. “I believe you expect him in a day or two?”
This was said to elicit if there might be some variance in the statement of Lady Eleanor and her servant.
“You are misinformed, sir. He is not in the kingdom, nor do I anticipate his speedy return.”
“So I told him, my Lady,” broke in the old butler. “I said the King wanted him—”
“You may leave the room, Tate,” said Lady Eleanor, who perceived with annoyance the sneering expression old Tate’s simplicity had called up in the stranger’s face. “Now, sir,” said she, turning towards him, “may I ask if your business with the Knight of Gwynne is of that nature that cannot be transacted in his absence or through his law agent?”
“Scarcely, madam,” said Nickie, with a sententious gravity, who, in the vantage-ground his power gave him, seemed rather desirous of prolonging the interview. “Mr. Darcy’s part can scarcely be performed by deputy, even if he found any one friendly enough to undertake it.”
Lady Eleanor never spoke, but her hand grasped her daughter’s more closely, and they both stood pale and trembling with agitation. Helen was the first to rally from this access of terror, and with an assured voice she said,—
“You have heard, sir, that the Knight of Gwynne is absent; and as you say your business is with him alone, is there any further reason for your presence here?”
Mr. Nickie seemed for a moment taken aback by this unexpected speech, and for a few seconds made no answer; his nature and his calling, however, soon supplied presence of mind, and with an air of almost insolent familiarity he answered,—
“Perhaps there may be, young lady.” He turned, and opening the door, gave a sharp whistle, which was immediately responded to by a cry of “Here we are, sir,” and the two followers already mentioned entered the cottage.
“You may have heard of such a thing as an execution, ma’am,” said Nickie, addressing Lady Eleanor, in a voice of mock civility, “the attachment of property for debt. This is part of my business at the present moment.”
“Do you mean here, sir—in this cottage?” asked Lady Eleanor, in an accent scarcely audible from terror.
“Yes, ma’am, just so. The law allows fourteen days for redemption, with payment of costs, until which time these men here will remain on the premises; and although these gimcracks will scarcely pay my client’s costs, we must only make the best of it.”
“But this property is not ours, sir. This cottage belongs to a friend.”
“I am aware of that, ma’am. And that friend is about to answer for his own sins on the present occasion, and not yours. These chattels are attached as the property of Bagenal Daly, Esquire, at the suit of Peter Hickman, formerly of Loughrea, surgeon and apothecary.”
“Is Mr. Daly aware-does he know of these proceedings?” gasped Lady Eleanor, faintly.
“In the multiplicity of similar affairs, ma’am, it is quite possible he may have let this one escape his memory; for if I don’t mistake, he has two actions pending in the King’s Bench, an answer in equity, three cases of common assault, and a contempt ol court,—all upon his hands for this present session, not to speak of what this may portend.”
Here he took a newspaper from his pocket, and having doubled down a paragraph, handed it to Lady Eleanor.
Overwhelmed by grief and astonishment, she made no motion to take the paper, and Mr. Nickie, turning to Helen, read aloud,—
‘“There is a rumor prevalent in the capital this morning, to which we cannot, in the present uncertainty as to fact, make any more than a guarded allusion. It is indeed one of those strange reports which we can neither credit nor reject,—the only less probable thing than its truth being that any one could deliberately fabricate so foul a calumny. The story in its details we forbear to repeat; the important point, however, is to connect the name of a well-known and eccentric late M. P. for an Irish borough with the malicious burning of Newgate, and the subsequent escape of the robber Freney.
“‘The reasons alleged for this most extraordinary act are so marvellous, absurd, and contradictory that we will not trifle with our readers’ patience by recounting them. The most generally believed one, however, is, that the senator and the highwayman had maintained, for years past, an intercourse of a very confidential nature, the threat to reveal which, on his trial, Freney used as compulsory means of procuring his escape.’
“Carrick goes further,” added Mr. Nickie, as he restored the paper to his pocket, “and gives the name of Bagenal Daly, Esq., in full; stating, besides, that he sailed for Halifax on Sunday last.”
Lady Eleanor and Helen exchanged looks of intelligent meaning, as he finished the paragraph. To them Daly’s hurried departure had a most significant importance.
“This, ma’am, among other reasons,” resumed Nickie, “was another hint to my client to press his claim; for Mr. Daly’s departure once known, there would soon be a scramble for the little remnant of his property. With your leave, I ‘ll now put the keepers in possession. Perhaps you ‘ll not be offended,” added he, in a lower tone, “if I remark that it’s usual to offer the men some refreshment. Come here, M’Dermot,” said he, aloud,-“a very respectable man, and married, too,—the ladies will make you comfortable, Mick, and I ‘m sure you ‘ll be civil and obliging.”
A grunt and a gesture with both hands was the answer.
“Falls, we’ll station you in the kitchen; mind you behave yourself.
“I ‘ll just take a slight inventory of the principal things,—a mere matter of form, ma’am,—I know you ‘ll not remove one of them,” said Mr. Nickie, who, like most coarsely minded people, was never more offensive than when seeking to be complimentary. He did not notice, however, the indignant look with which his speech was received, but proceeded regularly in his office.
There is something insupportably offensive and revolting in the business-like way of those who execute the severities of the law. Like the undertaker, they can sharpen the pangs of misfortune by vulgarizing its sorrows. Lady Eleanor gazed, in but half-consciousness, at the scene; the self-satisfied assurance of the chief, the ruffian contented-ness of his followers, grating on every prejudice of her mind. Not so Helen; more quick to reason on impressions, she took in, at a glance, their sad condition, and saw that, in a few days at furthest, they should be houseless as well as friendless in the world,—no one near to counsel or to succor them! Such were her thoughts as almost mechanically her eyes followed the sheriff’s officer through the chamber.
“Not that, sir,” cried she, hastily, as he stopped in front of a miniature of her father, and was noting it down in his list, among the objects of the apartment,—“not that, sir.”
“And why not, miss?” said Nickie, with a leer of impudent familiarity.
“It is a portrait of the Knight of Gwynne, sir, and our property.”
“Sorry for it, miss, but the law makes no distinction with regard to property on the premises. You can always recover by a replevin.”
“Come, Helen, let us leave this,” said Lady Eleanor, faintly; “come away, child.”
“You said, sir,” said Helen, turning hastily about,—“you said, sir, that these proceedings were taken at the suit of Dr. Hickman. Was it his desire that we should be treated thus?”
“Upon my word, young lady, he gave no special directions on the subject, nor, if he had, would it signify much. The law, once set in motion, must take its course; I suppose you know that.”
Helen did not hear his speech out, for, yielding to her mother, she quitted the apartment.
Mr. Nickie stood for a few moments gazing at the door by which they had made their exit, and then, turning towards M’Dermot, with a knowing wink he said, “We’ll be better friends before we part, I ‘ll engage, little as she likes me now.”
“Faix, I never seen yer equal at getting round them,” answered the sub, in a voice of fawning flattery, the very opposite of his former gruff tone.
“That’s the way I always begin, when they take a saucy way with them,” resumed Nickie, who felt evidently pleased at the other’s admiration. “And when they ‘re brought down a bit to a sense of their situation, I can just be as kind as I was cruel.”
“Never fear ye!” said M’Dermot, with a sententious shake of the head. “Devil a taste of her would lave the room, if it wasn’t for the mother.”
“I saw that plain enough,” said Nickie, as he threw a self-approving look at himself in a tall mirror opposite.
“She’s a fine young girl, there’s no denying it,” said M’Dermot, who anticipated, as the result of his chief’s attention, a more liberal scale of treatment for himself. “But I don’t know how ye ‘ll ever get round her, though to be sure if you can’t, who can?”
“This inventory will keep me till night,” said Nickie, changing the theme quite suddenly, “and I’ll miss Dempsey, I ‘m afraid.”
“I hope not; sure you have his track,—haven’t you?”
“Yes, and I have four fellows after him, along the shore here, but they say he ‘s cunning as a fox. Well, I ‘ll not give him up in a hurry, that’s all. Is that rain I hear against the glass, Mick?”
“Ay, and dreadful rain too!” said the other, peeping through the window, which now rattled and shook with a sudden squall of wind. “You ‘ll not be able to leave this so late.”
“So I ‘m thinking, Mick,” said Nickie, laying down his writing-materials, and turning his back to the fire; “I believe I must stay where I am.”
“‘T is yourself is the boy!” cried Mick, with a look of admiration at his master.
“You ‘re wrong, Mick,” said he, with a scarce repressed smile, “all wrong; I wasn’t thinking of her.”
“Maybe not,” said M’Dermot, shaking his head doubtfully; “maybe she’s not thinking of you this minute! But, afther all, I don’t know how ye ‘ll do it. Any one would say the vardic was again you.”
“So it is, man, but can’t we move for a new trial?” So saying, he turned suddenly about, and pulled the bell.
M’Dermot said nothing, but stood staring at his chief, with a well-feigned expression of wonderment, as though to say, “What is he going to do next?”
The summons was speedily answered by old Tate, who stood in respectful attention within the door. Not the slightest suspicion had crossed the butler’s mind of Mr. Nickie’s calling, or of his object with the Knight, or his manner would certainly have displayed a very different politeness. “Didn’t you ring, sir?” said he, with a bow to Nickie, who now seemed vacillating, and uncertain how to proceed.
“Yes—I did—ring—the—bell,” replied he, hesitating between each word of the sentence. “I was about to say that, as the night was so severe,—a perfect hurricane it seems,—I should remain here. Eh, did you speak?”
“No, sir,” replied Tate, respectfully.
“You can inform your mistress, then, and say, with Mr. Nickie’s respectful compliments,-mind that!—that if they have no objection, he would be happy to join them at supper.”
Tate stood as if transfixed, not a sign of anger, not even of surprise in his features. The shock had actually stupefied him.
“Do ye hear what the gentleman ‘s saying to you?” asked Mick, in a stern voice.
“Sir?” said Tate, endeavoring to recover his routed faculties,—“sir?”
“Tell the old fool what I said,” muttered Nickie, with angry impatience; and then, as if remembering that his message might possibly be not over-courteously worded by Mr. M’Dennot, he approached Tate, and said, “Give your mistress Mr. Nickie’s compliments, and say that, not being able to return to Coleraine, he hopes he may be permitted to pass the evening with her and Miss Darcy.” This message, uttered with great rapidity, as if the speaker dare not trust himself with more deliberation, was accompanied by a motion of the hand, which half pushed the old butler from the room.
Neither Mr. Nickie nor his subordinate exchanged a word during Tate’s absence. The former, indeed, seemed far less confident of his success than at first, and M’Dermot waited the issue, for his cue what part to take in the transaction.
If Tate’s countenance, when he left the room, exhibited nothing but confusion and bewilderment, when he reentered it his looks were composed and steadfast.
“Well?” said Nickie, as the old butler stood for a second without speaking,—“well?”
“Her Ladyship says that you and the other men, sir, may receive any accommodation the house affords.” He paused for a moment or two, and then added, “Her Ladyship declines Mr. Nickie’s society.”
“Did she give you that message herself?” asked Nickie, hastily; “are those her own words?”
“Them’s her words,” said Tate, dryly.
“I never heerd the likes—”
“Stop, Mick, hold your tongue!” said Nickie, to his over-zealous follower; while he muttered to himself, “My name is n’t Anthony Nickie, or I ‘ll make her repent that speech! Ay, faith,” said he, aloud, as turning to the portrait of the Knight he appeared to address it, “you shall come to the hammer as the original did before you.” If Tate had understood the purport of this sarcasm, it is more than probable the discussion would have taken another form; as it was, he listened to Mr. Nickie’s orders about the supper with due decorum, and retired to make the requisite preparations. “I will make a night of it, by———-,” exclaimed Nickie, as with clinched fist he struck the table before him. “I hope you know how to sing, Mick?”
“I can do a little that way, sir,” grinned the ruffian, “when the company is pressin’. If it was n’t too loud—”
“Too loud! you may drown the storm out there, if ye ‘re able. But wait till we have the supper and the liquor before us, as they might cut off the supplies.” And with this prudent counsel, they suffered Tate to proceed in his arrangements, without uttering another word.
CHAPTER XVIII. A CONVIVIAL EVENING
While Tate busied himself in laying the table, Mr. Nickie, with bent brows and folded arms, passed up and down the apartments, still ruminating on the affront so openly passed upon him, and cogitating how best to avenge it. As passing and repassing he cast his eyes on the preparations, he halted suddenly, and said, “Lay another cover here.” Tate stood, uncertain whether he had heard aright the words, when Nickie repeated, “Don’t you hear me? I said lay another cover. The gentleman will sup here.”
“Oh! indeed,” exclaimed Tate, as, opening his eyes to the fullest extent, he appeared to admit a new light upon his brain; “I beg pardon, sir, I was thinking that this gentleman might like to sup with the other gentleman, out in the kitchen beyond!”
“I said he ‘d sup here,” said Nickie, vehemently, for he felt the taunt in all its bitterness.
“I say, old fellow,” said M’Dermot in Tate’s ear, “you needn’t be sparin’ of the liquor. Give us the best you have, and plenty of it. It is all the same to yer master, you know, in a few days. I was saying, sir,” said he to Nickie, who, overhearing him, turned sharply round,-“I was saying, sir, that he might as well give up the ould bin with the cobweb over it. It’s the creditors suffers now, and we’ve many a way of doin’ a civil turn.”
“His mistress has shut the door on that,” said Nickie, savagely, “and she may take the consequences.”
“Oh, never mind him,” whispered M’Dermot to Tate; “he ‘s the best-hearted crayture that ever broke bread, but passionate, d’ ye mind, passionate.”
Poor Tate, who had suddenly become alive to the characters and objects of his quests, was now aware that his mistress’s refusal to admit the chief might possibly be productive of very disastrous consequences; for, like all low Irishmen, he had a very ample notion of the elastic character of the law, and thought that its pains and penalties were entirely at the option of him who executed it.
“Her Ladyship never liked to see much company,” said he, apologetically.
“Well, maybe so,” rejoined M’Dennot, “but in a quiet homely sort of a way, sure she need n’t have refused Mr. Anthony; little she knows, there ‘s not the like of him for stories about the Court of Conscience and the Sessions.”
“I don’t doubt it,” exclaimed Tate, who, in assenting, felt pretty certain that his fascinations would scarcely have met appreciation in the society of his mistress and her daughter.
“And if ye heerd him sing ‘Hobson’s Choice,’ with a new verse of his own at the end!”
Tate threw a full expression of wondering admiration into his features, and went on with his arrangements in silence.
“Does he know anything of Dempsey, do you think?” said Nickie, in a whisper to his follower.
“Not he,” muttered the other, scornfully; “the crayture seems half a nat’ral.” Then, in a voice pitched purposely loud, he said, “Do you happen to know one Dempsey in these parts?”
“Paul Dempsey?” added Nickie.
“A little, short man, with a turned-up nose, that walks with his shoulders far back and his hands spread out? Ay, I know him well; he dined here one day with the master, and sure enough he made the company laugh hearty!”
“I ‘d be glad to meet him, if he ‘s as pleasant as you say,” said Nickie, slyly.
“There’s nothing easier, then,” said Tate; “since the boarding-house is closed there at Ballintray, he’s up in Coleraine for the winter. I hear he waits for the Dublin mail, at M’Grotty’s door, every evening, to see the passengers, and that he has a peep at the way-bill before the agent himself.”
“Has he so many acquaintances that he is always on the look out for one?”
“Faix, if they’d let him,” cried Tate, laughing, “I believe he ‘d know every man, woman, and child in Ireland. For curiosity, he beats all ever I seen.”
As Tate spoke, a sudden draught of wind seemed to penetrate the chamber,—at least the canoe and its party shook perceptibly.
“We’ll have a rare night of it,” said Nickie, drawing nearer to the fire. Then resuming, added, “And you say I’ll have no difficulty to find him?”
“Not the least, bedad! It would be far harder to escape him, from all I hear. He watches the coach, and never leaves it till he sees the fore boot and the hind one empty; not only looking the passengers in the face, but tumbling over the luggage, reading all the names, and where they ‘re going. Oh, he’s a wonderful man for knowledge!”
“Indeed,” said Nickie, with a look of attention to draw on the garrulity of the old man.
“I’ve reason to remember it well,” said Tate, putting both hands to his loins. “It was the day he dined here I got the rheumatiz in the small of my back. When I went to open the gate without there for him, he kept me talking for three quarters of an hour in the teeth of an east wind that would shave a goat,—asking me about the master and the mistress and Miss Helen, ay, and even about myself at last,—if I had any brothers, and what their names was, and who was Mister Daly, and whether he did n’t keep a club-house. By my conscience, it’s well for him ould Bagenal did n’t hear him!”
A clattering sound from the canoe suddenly interrupted Tate’s narrative; he stopped short, and muttered, in a tone of unfeigned terror,—
“That’s the way always,-may I never see glory! ye can’t speak of him but he hears ye!”
A rude laugh from Nickie, chorused still more coarsely by M’Dermot, arrested Tate’s loquacity, and he finished his arrangements without speaking, save in a few broken sentences.
If Mr. Nickie could have been conciliated by material enjoyments, he might decidedly have confessed that the preparations for his comfort were ample and hospitable. A hot supper diffused its savory steam on a table where decanters and flasks of wine of different sorts and sizes attested that the more convivial elements of a feast were not forgotten. Good humor was, however, not to be restored by such amends. He was wounded in his self-love, outraged in his vanity; and he sat down in a dogged silence to the meal, a perfect contrast in appearance to the coarse delight of his subordinate.
While Tate remained to wait on them, Nickie’s manner and bearing were unchanged. A sullen, sulky expression sat on features which, even when at the best, conveyed little better than a look of shrewd keenness; nor could the appetite with which he eat suggest a passing ray of satisfaction to his face.
“I am glad we are rid of that old fellow at last,” said he, as the door closed upon Tate. “Whether fool or knave, I saw what he was at; he would have been disrespectful if he dared.”
“I did n’t mind him much, sir,” said M’Dermot, honestly confessing that the good cheer had absorbed his undivided attention.
“I did, then; I saw his eyes fixed effectually on us,—on you particularly. I thought he would have laughed outright when you helped yourself to the entire duck.”
Nickie spoke this with an honest severity, meant to express his discontent with his companion fully as much as with the old butler.
“Well, it was an excellent supper, anyhow,” said M’Dermot, taking the bottle which Nickie pushed towards him somewhat rudely; “and here ‘s wishing health and happiness and long life to ye, Mr. Anthony. May ye always have as plentiful a board, and better company round it.”
There was a fawning humility in the fellow’s manner that seemed to gratify the other, for he nodded a return to the sentiment, and, after a brief pause, said,—“The servants in these grand houses,—and that old fellow, you may remark, was with the Darcys when they were great people,—they give themselves airs to everybody they think below the rank of their master.”
“Faix, they might behave better to you, Mr. Anthony,” said M’Dermot.
“Well, they’re run their course now,” said Nickie, not heeding the remark. “Both master and man have had their day. I ‘ve seen more executions on property in the last six months than ever I did in all my life before. Creditors won’t wait now as they used to do. No influence now to make gaugers and tide-waiters and militia officers; no privilege of Parliament to save them from arrest!”
“My blessings on them for that, anyhow,” said M’Dermot, finishing his glass. “The Union ‘s a fine thing.”
“The fellows that got the bribes—and, to be sure, there was plenty of money going—won’t stay to spend it in Ireland; devil a one will remain here, but those that are run out and ruined.”
“Bad luck to it for a Bill!” said M’Dermot, who felt obliged to sacrifice his consistency in his desire to concur with each new sentiment of his chief.
“The very wine we’re drinking, maybe, was given for a vote. Pitt knew well how to catch them.”
“Success attend him!” chimed in M’Dermot.
“And just think of them now,” continued Nickie, whose ruminations were never interrupted by the running commentary,—“just think of them! selling the country, trade, prosperity, everything, for a few hundred pounds.”
“The blackguards!”
“Some, to be sure, made a fine thing out of it. Not like old Darcy here; they were early in the market, and got both rank and money too.”
“Ay, that was doin’ it in style!” exclaimed Mike, who expressed himself this time somewhat equivocally, for safety’s sake.
“There ‘s no denying it, Castlereagh was a clever fellow!”
“The best man ever I seen—I don’t care who the other is.”
“He knew when to bid, and when to draw back; never became too pressing, but never let any one feel himself neglected; watched his opportunities slyly, and when the time came, pounced down like a hawk on his victim.”
“Oh, the thieves’ breed! What a hard heart he had!” muttered M’Dermot, perfectly regardless of whom he was speaking.
Thus did Mr. Nickie ramble on, in the popular cant, over the subject of the day; for although the Union was now carried, and its consequences—whatever they might be—so far inevitable, the men whose influence effected the measure were still before the bar of public opinion,—an ordeal not a whit more just and discriminating than it usually is. While the current of these reminiscences ran on, varied by some anecdote here or some observation there, both master and man drank deeply. So long as good liquor abounded, Mr. M’Dermot could have listened with pleasure, even to a less entertaining companion; and as for Nickie, he felt a vulgar pride in discussing, familiarly and by name, the men of rank and station who took a leading part in Irish politics. The pamphlets and newspapers of the day had made so many private histories public, had unveiled so many family circumstances before the eyes of the world, that his dissertations had all the seeming authenticity of personal knowledge.
It was at the close of a rather violent denunciation of the “Traitors”—as the Government party was ever called—that Nickie, striking the table with his fist, called on M’Dermot to sing.
“I say, Mac,” cried he, with a faltering tongue, and eyes red and bleared from drink,—“the old lady—wouldn’t accept my society—she did n’t think—An-tho-ny Nickie, Esquire—good enough—to sit down—at her table. Let us show her what she has lost, my boy. Give her ‘Bob Uniake’s Boots’ or ‘The Major’s Prayer.’”
“Or what d’ ye think of the new ballad to Lord Castlereagh, sir?” suggested M’Dermot, modestly. “It was the last thing Rhoudlim had when I left town.”
“Is it good?” hiccuped Nickie.
“If ye heerd Rhoudlim—”
“D——n Rhoudlim!—she used to sing that song Parsons made on the attorneys. Parsons never liked us, Mac. You know what he said to Holmes, who went to him for a subscription of five shillings, to help to bury Mat Costegan. ‘Was n’t he an attorney?’ says Parsons. ‘He was,’ says the other. ‘Well, here ‘s a pound,’ says he; ‘take it and bury four!’”
“Oh, by my conscience, that was mighty nate!” said M’Dermot, who completely forgot himself.
Nickie frowned savagely at his companion, and for a moment seemed about to express his anger more palpably, when he suddenly drank off his glass, and said, “Well, the song,-let us have it now.”
“I ‘m afraid—I don’t know more than a verse here and there,” said Mac, bashfully stroking down his hair, and mincing his words; “but with the help of a chorus—”
“Trust me for that,” cried Nickie, who now drank glass after glass without stopping; “I’m always ready for a song.” So saying he burst out into a half-lachryinose chant,—
“An old maid had a roguish eye!
And she was call’d the great Kamshoodera!
Rich was she and poor was I!
Fol de dol de die do!
“I forget the rest, Mickie, but it goes on about a Nabob and a bear, and—a—what’s this ye call it, a pottle of green gooseberries that Lord Clangoff sold to Mrs. Kelfoyle.”
“To be sure; I remember it well,” said Mac, humoring the drunken lucubrations; “but my chant is twice as aisy to sing,—the air is the ‘Black Joke;’ and any one can chorus.”
“Well, open the proceedings,” hiccuped Nickie; “state the case.”
And thus encouraged, Mr. M’Dermot cleared his throat, and in a voice loud and coarse enough to be heard above the howling din, began:—
“Though many a mile he’s from Erin away,
Here ‘s health and long life to my Lord Castlereagh,
With his bag full of guineas so bright!
‘T was he that made Bishops and Deans by the score,
And Peers, of the fashion of Lord Donoughmore!
And a Colonel of horse of our friend Billy Lake,
And Wallincourt a Lord,—t’other day but Joe Blake,
With his bag full of guineas so bright.
“Come Beresford, Bingham, Luke Fox, and Tyrone,
Come Kearney, Bob Johnston, and Arthur Malone,
With your bag full of guineas so bright;
Lord Charles Fitzgerald and Kit Fortescue,
And Henry Deane Grady,—we ‘ll not forget you,
Come Cuffe, Isaac Corry, and General Dunne,
And you Jemmy Vandeleur,—come every one,
With your bag full of guineas so bright.
Come Talbot and Townsend, Come Toler and Trench,
Tho’ made for the gallows, ye ‘re now on the Bench,
With your bag full of guineas so bright
But if ever again this black list I ‘ll begin,
The first name I ‘ll take is the ould Knight of Gwynne,
Who, robb’d of his property, stripped of his pelf,
Would be glad to see Erin as poor as himself.
With no bag full of guineas so bright.
“If the Parliament ‘s gone, and the world it has scoffed us,
What a blessing to think that we ‘ve Tottenham Loftus,
With his bag full of guineas so bright.
Oh, what consolation through every disaster,
To know that your Lordship is made our Postmaster,
And your uncle a Bishop, your aunt—but why mention,
Two thousand a year, ‘of a long service pension’
Of a bag full of guineas so bright.
“But what is the change, since your Lordship appears!
You found us all Paupers, you left us all Peers,
With your bag full of guineas so bright.
Not a man in the island, however he boast,
But has a good reason to fill to the toast,—
From Cork to the Causeway, from Howth to Clue Bay,
A health and long life to my Lord Castlereagh,
With his bag full of guineas so bright.”
The boisterous accompaniment by which Mr. Nickie testified his satisfaction at the early verses had gradually subsided into a low droning sound, which at length, towards the conclusion, lapsed into a prolonged heavy snore. “Fast!” exclaimed M’Dermot, holding the candle close to his eyes. “Fast!” Then taking up the decanter, he added, “And if ye had gone off before, it would have been no great harm. Ye never had the bottle out of yer grip for the last hour and half!” He heaped some wood on the grate, refilled his glass, and then disposing himself so as to usurp a very large share of the blazing fire, prepared to follow the good example of his chief. Long habit had made an arm-chair to the full as comfortable as a bed to the worthy functionary, and his arrangements were scarcely completed, when his nose announced by a deep sound that he was a wanderer in the land of dreams.
Poor Mr. Dempsey—for if the reader may have forgotten him all this while, we must not—listened long and watchfully to the heavy notes, nor was it without considerable fear that he ventured to unveil his head and take a peep under Daly’s arm at the sleepers. Reassured by the seeming heaviness of the slumberers, he dared a step farther, and at last seated himself bolt upright in the canoe, glad to relieve his cramped-up legs, even by this momentary change of position. So cautious were all his movements, so still and noiseless every gesture, that had there been a waking eye to mark him, it would have been hard enough to distinguish between his figure and those of his inanimate neighbors.
The deep and heavy breathing of the sleepers was the only sound to be heard; they snored as if it were a contest between them; still it was long before Dempsey could summon courage enough to issue from his hiding-place, and with stealthy steps approach the table. Cautiously lifting the candle, he first held it to the face of one and then of the other of the sleepers. His next move was to inspect the supper-table, where, whatever the former abundance, nothing remained save the veriest fragments: the bottles too were empty, and poor Dempsey shook his head mournfully as he poured out and drank the last half-glass of sherry in a decanter. This done, he stood for a few minutes reflecting what step he should take next. A sudden change of position of Nickie startled him from these deliberations, and Dempsey cowered down beneath the table in terror. Scarcely daring to breathe, Paul waited while the sleeper moved from side to side, muttering some short and broken words; at length he seemed to have settled himself to his satisfaction, for so his prolonged respiration bespoke. Just as he had turned for the last time, a heavy roll of papers fell from his pocket to the floor. Dempsey eyed the packet with a greedy look, but did not dare to reach his hand towards it, till well assured that the step was safe.
Taking a candle from the table, Paul reseated himself on the floor, and opened a large roll of documents tied with red tape; the very first he unrolled seemed to arrest his attention strongly, and although passing on to the examination of the remainder, he more than once recurred to it, till at length creeping stealthily towards the fire, he placed it among the burning embers, and stirred and poked until it became a mere mass of blackened leaves.
“There,” muttered he, “Paul Dempsey ‘s his own man again. And now what can he do for his friends? Ha, ha! ‘Execution against Effects of Bagenal Daly, Esq.,’” said he, reading half aloud; “and this lengthy affair here, ‘Instructions to A. N. relative to the enclosed’-let us see what that may be.” And so saying, he opened the scroll; a bright flash of flame burst out from among the slumbering embers, and ere it died away Paul read a few lines of the paper. “What scoundrels!” muttered he, as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, for already had honest Paul’s feelings excited him to the utmost. The flame was again flickering, in another moment it would be out, when, stealing forth his hand, he placed an open sheet upon it, and then, as the blaze caught, he laid the entire bundle of papers on the top, and watched them till they were reduced to ashes.
“Maybe it’s a felony—I’m sure it’s a misdemeanor at least—what I ‘ve done now,” muttered he; “but there was no resisting it. I wish I thought it was no heavier crime to do the same by these worthy gentlemen here.”
Indeed, for a second or two, Paul’s hesitation seemed very considerable. Fear, or something higher in principle, got the victory at length, and after a long silence he said,—
“Well, I ‘ll not harm them.” And with this benevolent sentiment he stood up, and detaching Darcy’s portrait from the wall, thrust it into his capacious pocket. This done, he threw another glance over the table, lest some unseen decanter might still remain; but no, except a water-jug of pure element, nothing remained.
“Good-night, and pleasant dreams t’ye both,” muttered Paul, as, blowing out one candle, he took the other, and slipped, without the slightest noise, from the room.
CHAPTER XIX. MR. DEMPSEY BEHIND THE SCENE
No very precise or determined purpose guided Mr. Dempsey’s footsteps as he issued from the hall and gained the corridor, from which the various rooms of the cottage opened. Benevolent intentions of the vaguest kind towards Lady Eleanor were commingled with thoughts of his own safety, and perhaps more strongly than either, an intense curiosity to inspect the domestic arrangements of the family, not without the hope of finding something to eat.
He had now been about twenty-four hours without food, and to a man who habitually lived in a boarding-house, and felt it a point of honor to consume as much as he could for his weekly pay, the abstinence was far from agreeable. If then his best inspirations were blended with some selfishness, he was not quite unpardonable. Mr. Dempsey tried each door as he went along, and although they were all unlocked, the interiors responded to none of his anticipations. The apartments were plainly but comfortably furnished; in some books lay about, and an open piano told of recent habitation. In one, which he judged rightly to be the Knight’s drawing-room, a table was covered over with letters and law papers,—documents which honest Paul beheld with some feeling akin to Aladdin, when he surveyed the inestimable treasures he had no means of carrying away with him from the mine. A faint gleam of light shone from beneath a door at the end of the corridor, and thither with silent footsteps he now turned. All was still: he listened as he drew near; but except the loud ticking of a clock, nothing was to be heard. Paul tried to reconnoitre by the keyhole, but it was closed. He waited for some time unable to decide on the most fitting course, and at length opened the door, and entered. Stopping short at the threshold, Paul raised the candle, to take a better view of the apartment. Perhaps any one save himself would have returned on discovering it was a bedroom. A large old-fashioned bed, with a deep and massive curtain closely drawn, stood against one wall; beside it, on the table, was a night-lamp, from which the faint glimmer he had first noticed proceeded. Some well-stuffed arm-chairs were disposed here and there, and on the tables lay articles of female dress. Mr. Dempsey stood for a few seconds, and perhaps some secret suspicion crept over him that this visit might be thought intrusive. It might be Lady Eleanor’s, or perhaps Miss Darcy’s chamber. Who was to say she was not actually that instant in bed asleep? Were the fact even so, Mr. Dempsey only calculated on a momentary shock of surprise at his appearance, well assured that his explanation would be admitted as perfectly satisfactory. Thus wrapped in his good intentions, and shrouding the light with one hand, he drew the curtain with the other. The bed was empty, the coverings were smooth, the pillows unpressed. The occupant, whoever it might be, had not yet taken possession. Mr. Dempsey’s fatigue was only second to his hunger, and having failed to discover the larder, it is more than probable he would have contented himself with the gratification of a sleep, had he not just at that instant perceived a light flickering beside and beneath the folds of a heavy curtain which hung over a doorway at the farthest end of the room. His spirit of research once more encouraged, he moved towards it, and drawing it very gently, admitted his eye in the interspace. A glass door intervened between him and a small chamber, but permitted him to see without being heard by those within. Flattening his features on the glass, he stared at the scene; and truly one less inspired by the spirit of inquiry might have felt shocked at being thus placed. Lady Eleanor sat in her dressing-gown on a sofa, while, half kneeling, half lying at her feet, was Helen, her head concealed in her mother’s lap, and her long hair loosely flowing over her neck and shoulders. Lady Eleanor was pale as death, and the marks of recent tears were ou her cheeks; but still her features wore the expression of deep tenderness and pity, rather than of selfish sorrow. Helen’s face was hidden; but her attitude, and the low sobbing sounds that at intervals broke the stillness, told how her heart was suffering.
“My dear, dear child,” said Lady Eleanor, as she laid her hand upon the young girl’s head, “be comforted. Rest assured that in making me the partner in your sorrow, I will be the happier participator in your joy, whenever its day may come. Yes, Helen, and it will come.”
“Had I told you earlier—”
“Had you done so,” interrupted Lady Eleanor, “you had been spared much grief, for I could have assured you, as I now do, that you are not to blame,—that this young man’s rashness, however we may deplore it, had no promptings from us.”
Helen replied, but in so low a tone that Mr. Dempsey could not catch the words; he could hear, however, Lady Eleanor uttering at intervals words of comfort and encouragement, and at last she said,—
“Nay, Helen, no half-confidence, my child. Acknowledge it fairly, that your opinion of him is not what it was at first; or if you will not confess it, leave it to my own judgment And why should you not?” added she, in a stronger voice; “wiser heads may reprove his precipitancy, criticise what would be called his folly, but you may be forgiven for thinking that his Quixotism could deserve another and a fonder title. And I, Helen, grown old and chilly-hearted, each day more distrustful of the world, less sanguine in hope, more prone to suspect,—even I feel that devotion like his has a strong claim on your affection. And shall I own to you that on the very day he brought us that letter a kind of vague presentiment that I should one day like him stole across me. What was the noise? Did you not hear something stir?” Helen had heard it, but paid no further attention, for there was no token of any one being near.
Noise, however, there really was, occasioned by Mr. Dempsey, who, in his eagerness to hear, had pushed the door partly open. For some moments back, honest Paul had listened with as much embarrassment as curiosity, sorely puzzled to divine of whom the mother and daughter were speaking. The general tenor of the conversation left the subject no matter of difficulty. The individual was the only doubtful question. Lady Eleanor’s allusion to a letter, and her own feelings at the moment, at once reminded him of her altered manner to himself on the evening he brought the epistle from Coleraine, and how she, who up to that time had treated him with unvarying distance and reserve, had as suddenly become all the reverse.
“Blood alive!” said he to himself, “I never as much as suspected it!” His eagerness to hear further was intense; and although he had contrived to keep the door ajar, his curiosity was doomed to disappointment, for it was Helen who spoke, and her words were uttered in a low, faint tone, utterly inaudible where he stood. Whatever pleasure Mr. Dempsey might have at first derived from his contraband curiosity, was more than repaid now by the tortures of anxiety. He suspected that Helen was making a full confession of her feelings towards him, and yet he could not catch a syllable. Lady Eleanor, too, when she spoke again, it was in an accent almost equally faint; and all that Paul could gather was that the mother was using expressions of cheerfulness and hope, ending with the words,—
“His own fortunes look now as darkly as ours; mayhap the same bright morning will dawn for both together, Helen. We have hope to cheer us, for him and for us.”
“Ah! true enough,” muttered Paul; “she’s alluding to old Bob Dempsey, and if the Lord would take him, we ‘d all come right again.”
Helen now arose, and seated herself beside her mother, with her head leaning ou her shoulder; and Mr. Dempsey might have been pardoned if he thought she never looked more beautiful. The loose folds of her night-dress less concealed than delineated the perfect symmetry of her form; while through the heavy masses of the luxuriant hair that fell upon her neck and shoulders, her skin seemed more than ever delicately fair. If Paul’s mind was a perfect whirl of astonishment, delight, and admiration, his doubts were no less puzzling. What was he to do? Should he at once discover himself, throw himself at Helen’s feet in a rapture, confessing that he had heard her avowal, and declare that the passion was mutual? This, although with evident advantages on the score of dramatic effect, had also its drawback. Lady Eleanor, who scarcely looked as well in dishabille as her daughter, might feel offended. She might take it ill, also, that he had been a listener. Paul had heard of people who actually deemed eavesdropping unbecoming! Who knows, among her own eccentricities, if this one might not find place? Paul, therefore, resolved on a more cautious advance, and, for his guidance, applied his ear once more to the aperture. This time, however, without success, for they spoke still lower than before; nor, after a long and patient waiting, could he hear more than that the subject was their present embarrassment, and the necessity of immediately removing from “The Corvy,” but where to, and how, they could not determine.
There was no time to ask Bicknell’s advice; before an answer could arrive, they would be exposed to all the inconvenience, perhaps insult, which Mr. Nickie’s procedure seemed to threaten. The subject appeared one to which all their canvassing had brought no solution, and at last Lady Eleanor said,—
“How thankful I am, Helen, that I never wrote to Lord Netherby; more than once, when our difficulties seemed to thicken, I half made up my mind to address him. How much would it add to my present distress of mind, if I had yielded to the impulse! The very thought is now intolerable.”
“Pride! pride!” muttered Paul.
“And I was so near it,” ejaculated Lady Eleanor.
“Yes,” said Helen, sharply; “our noble cousin’s kindness would be a sore aggravation of our troubles.”
“Worse than the mother, by Jove!” exclaimed Paul. “Oh dear! if I had a cousin a lord, maybe he’d not hear of me.”
Lady Eleanor spoke again; but Paul could only catch a stray word here and there, and again she reverted to the necessity of leaving the cottage at once.
“Could we even see this Mr. Dempsey,” said she, “he knows the country well, and might be able to suggest some fitting place for the moment, at least till we could decide on better.”
Paul scarcely breathed, that he might catch every syllable.
“Yes,” said Helen, eagerly, “he would be the very person to assist us; but, poor little man! he has his own troubles, too, at this moment.”
“She’s a kind creature,” muttered Paul; “how fond I’m growing of her!”
“It is no time for the indulgence of scruples; otherwise, Helen, I ‘d not place much reliance on the gentleman’s taste.”
“Proud as Lucifer,” thought Paul.
“His good-nature, mamma, is the quality we stand most in need of, and I have a strong trust that he is not deficient there.”
“What a situation to be placed in!” sighed Lady Eleanor: “that we should turn with a shudder from seeking protection where it is our due, and yet ask counsel and assistance from a man like this!”
“I feel no repugnance whatever to accepting such a favor from Mr. Dempsey, while I should deem it a great humiliation to be suitor to the Earl of Netherby.”
“And yet he is our nearest relative living,—with vast wealth and influence, and I believe not indisposed towards us. I go too fast, perhaps,” said she, scornfully; “his obligations to my own father were too great and too manifold, that I should say so.”
“What a Tartar!” murmured Paul.
“If the proud Earl could forget the services my dear father rendered him, when, a younger son, without fortune or position, he had no other refuge than our house,—if he could wipe away the memory of benefits once received,—he might perhaps be better minded towards us; but obligation is so suggestive of ill-will.”
“Dearest mamma,” said Helen, laughing, “if your hopes depend upon his Lordship’s forgetfulness of kindness, I do think we may afford to be sanguine. I am well inclined to think that he is not weighed down by the load of gratitude that makes men enemies. Still,” added she, more seriously, “I am very averse to seeking his aid, or even his counsel; I vote for Mr. Dempsey.”
“How are we to endure the prying impertinence of his curiosity? Have you thought of that, Helen?”
Paul’s cheek grew scarlet, and his very fingers’ ends tingled.
“Easily enough, mamma. Nay, if our troubles were not so urgent, it would be rather amusing than otherwise; and with all his vulgarity—”
“The little vixen!” exclaimed Paul, so much off his guard that both mother and daughter started.
“Did you hear that, Helen? I surely heard some one speak.”
“I almost thought so,” replied Miss Darcy, taking up a candle from the table, and proceeding towards the door. Mr. Dempsey had but time to retreat behind the curtain of the bed, when she reached the spot where he had been standing. “No, all is quiet in the house,” said she, opening the door into the corridor and listening. “Even our respectable guests would seem to be asleep.” She waited for a few seconds, and then returned to her place on the sofa.
Mr. Dempsey had either heard enough to satisfy the immediate cravings of his curiosity, or, more probably, felt his present position too critical; for when he drew the curtain once more close over the glass door, he slipped noiselessly into the corridor, and entering the first room he could find, opened the window and sprang out.
“You shall not be disappointed in Paul Dempsey, anyhow,” said he, as he buttoned up the collar of his coat, and pressed his hat more firmly on his head. “No, my Lady, he may be vulgar and inquisitive, though I confess it’s the first time I ever heard of either; but he is not the man to turn his back on a good-natured action, when it lies full in front of him. What a climate, to be sure! it blows from the four quarters of the globe all at once, and the rain soaks in and deluges one’s very heart’s blood. Paul, Paul, you ‘ll have a smart twinge of rheumatism from this night’s exploit.”
It may be conjectured that Mr. Dempsey, like many other gifted people, had a habit of compensating for the want of society by holding little dialogues or discourses with himself,—a custom from which he derived no small gratification, for, while it lightened the weariness of a lonely way, it enabled him to say many more flattering and civil things to himself than he usually heard from an ungrateful world.
“They talk of Demerara,” said he; “I back Antrim against the world for a hurricane. The rainy season here lasts all the year round; and if practice makes perfect—There, now I ‘m wet through, I can’t be worse. Ah! Helen, Helen, if you knew how unfit Paul Dempsey is to play Paris! By the way, who was the fellow that swam the Hellespont for love of a young lady? Not Laertes, no—that’s not it-Leander, that’s the name—Leander.”
Paul muttered the name several times over, and by a train of thought which we will not attempt to follow or unravel, began humming to himself the well-known Irish ditty of—
“Teddy, ye gander,
Yer like a Highlander.”
He soon came to a stop in the words, but continued to sing the air, till at last he broke out in the following version of his own:—
“Paul Dempsey, ye gander,
You ‘re like that Leander
Who for somebody’s daughter—for somebody’s daughter
Did not mind it one pin
To be wet to the skin,
With a dip in salt water—a dip in salt water.
“Were you wiser, ‘tis plain,
You ‘d be now in Coleraine,
A nightcap on your head—a nightcap on your head,
With a jorum of rum,
Made by old Mother Fum,
At the side of your bed—at the side of your bed.
“For tho’ love is divine,
When the weather is fine,
And a season of bliss—a season of bliss,
‘Tis a different thing
For a body to sing
On a night such as this—a night such as this.
“Paul Dempsey! remember,
On the ninth of December
You ‘ll be just forty-six—you ‘ll be just forty-six,
And the world will say
That at your time o’ day
You ‘re too old for these tricks—you ‘re too old for these tricks.
“And tho’ water may show
One’s love, faith,
I know I ‘d rather prove mine—I ‘d rather prove mine
With my feet on the fender;
‘T is then I grow tender,
O’er a bumper of wine—o’er a bumper of wine!
“A bumper of wine!” sighed he. “On my conscience, it would be an ugly toast I ‘d refuse to drink this minute, if the liquor was near.
“Ah! when warm and snog,
With my legs on the rug,
By a turf fire red—a turf fire red—
But how can I rhyme it?
With this horrid climate,
Destroying my head—destroying my head?
“With a coat full of holes,
And my shoes without soles,
And my hat like a teapot—my hat like a teapot—
“Oh, murther, murther!” screamed he, aloud, as his shins came in contact with a piece of timber, and he fell full length to the ground, sorely bruised, and perfectly enveloped in snow. It was some minutes before he could rally sufficiently to get up; and although he still shouted for help, seeing a light in a window near, no one came to his assistance, leaving poor Paul to his own devices.
It was some consolation for his sufferings to discover that the object over which he had stumbled was the shaft of a jaunting-car, such a conveyance being at that moment what he most desired to meet with. The driver at last made his appearance, and informed him that he had brought Nickie and his two companions from Larne, and was now only waiting their summons to proceed to Coleraine.
Paul easily persuaded the man that he could earn a fare in the mean time, for that Nickie would probably not leave “The Corvy” till late on the following day, and that by a little exertion he could manage to drive to Coleraine and back before he was stirring. It is but fair to add that poor Mr. Dempsey supported his arguments by lavish promises of reward, to redeem which he speculated on mortgaging his silver watch, and probably his umbrella, when he reached Coleraine.
It was yet a full hour before daybreak, as Lady Eleanor, who had passed the night in her dressing-room, was startled by a sharp tapping noise at her window; Helen lay asleep on the sofa, and too soundly locked in slumber to hear the sounds. Lady Eleanor listened, and while half fearing to disturb the young girl, wearied and exhausted as she was, she drew near to the window. The indistinct shadow of a figure was all that she could detect through the gloom, but she fancied she could hear a weak effort to pronounce her name.
There could be little doubt of the intentions of the visitor; whoever he should prove, the frail barrier of a window could offer no resistance to any one disposed to enter by force, and, reasoning thus, Lady Eleanor unfastened the casement, and cried, “Who is there?”
A strange series of gestures, accompanied by a sound between a sneeze and the crowing of a cock, was all the reply; and when the question was repeated in a louder tone, a thin quivering voice muttered, “Pau-au-l De-de-dempsey, my La-dy.”
“Mr. Dempsey, indeed!” exclaimed Lady Eleanor. “Oh! pray come round to the door at your left hand; it is only a few steps from where you are standing.”
Short as the distance was, Mr. Dempsey’s progress was of the slowest, and Lady Eleanor had already time to awaken Helen, ere the half-frozen Paul had crossed the threshold.
“He has passed the night in the snow,” cried Lady Eleanor to her daughter, as she led him towards the fire.
“No, my Lady,” stammered out Paul, “only the last hour and a half; before that I was snug under old Daly’s blanket.”
A very significant interchange of looks between mother and daughter seemed to imply that poor Mr. Dempsey’s wits were wandering.
“Call Tate; let him bring some wine here at once, Helen.”
“It’s all drunk; not a glass in the decanter,” murmured Paul, whose thoughts recurred to the supper-table.
“Poor creature, his mind is quite astray,” whispered Lady Eleanor, her compassion not the less strongly moved, because she attributed his misfortune to the exertions he had made in their behalf. By this time the group was increased by the arrival of old Tate, who, in a flannel nightcap fastened under the chin, and a very ancient dressing-gown of undyed wool, presented a lively contrast to the shivering condition of Mr. Dempsey.
“It’s only Mr. Dempsey!” said Lady Eleanor, sharply, as the old butler stood back, crossing himself and staring with sleepy terror at the white figure.
“May I never! But so it is,” exclaimed Tate, in return to an attempt at a bow on Dempsey’s part, which he accomplished with a brackling noise like creaking glass.
“Some warm wine at once,” said Helen, while she heaped two or three logs upon the hearth.
“With a little ginger in it, miss,” grinned Paul. But the polite attempt at a smile nearly cut his features, and ended in a most lamentable expression of suffering.
“This is the finest thing in life agin’ the cowld,” said Tate, as he threw over the shivering figure a Mexican mantle, all worked and embroidered with quills, that gave the gentle Mr. Dempsey the air of an enormous porcupine. The clothing, the fire, and the wine, of which he partook heartily, soon restored him, and erelong he had recounted to Lady Eleanor the whole narrative of his arrival at “The Corvy,” his concealment in the canoe, the burning of the law papers, and even down to the discovery of the jaunting-car, omitting nothing, save the interview he had witnessed between the mother and daughter.
Lady Eleanor could not disguise her anxiety on the subject of the burned documents, but Paul’s arguments were conclusive in reply,—
“Who’s to tell of it? Not your Ladyship, not Miss Helen; and as to Paul, meaning myself, my discretion is quite Spanish. Yes, my Lady,” said he, with a tragic gesture that threw back the loose folds of his costume, “there is an impression abroad, which I grieve to say is widespread, that the humble individual who addresses you is one of those unstable, fickle minds that accomplish nothing great; but I deny it, deny it indignantly. Let the occasion but arise, let some worthy object present itself, or herself,”—he gave a most melting look towards Helen, which cost all her efforts to sustain without laughter,—“and then, madam, Don Paulo Dempsey will come out in his true colors.”
“Which I sincerely hope may not be of the snow tint,” said Lady Eleanor, smiling. “But pray, Mr. Dempsey, to return to a theme more selfish. You are sufficiently aware of our unhappy circumstances here at this moment, to see that we must seek some other abode, at least for the present. Can you then say where we can find such?”
“Miss Daly’s neighborhood, perhaps,” broke in Helen.
“Never do,-not to be thought of,” interrupted Paul; “there’s nothing for it but the Panther—”
“The what, sir?” exclaimed Lady Eleanor, in no small surprise.
“The Panther, my Lady, Mother Fum’s! snug, quiet, and respectable; social, if you like,—selfish, if you please it. Solitary or gregarious; just as you fancy.”
“And where, sir, is the Panther?” said Lady Eleanor, who in her innocence supposed this to be the sign of some village inn.
“In the Diamond of Coleraine, my Lady, opposite M’Grotty’s, next but one to Kitty Black’s hardware, and two doors from the Post-Office; central and interesting. Mail-car from Newtown, Lim.,—takes up passengers, within view of the windows, at two every day. Letters given out at four,—see every one in the town without stirring from your window. Huston’s, the apothecary, always full of people at post hour. Gibbin’s tobacco-shop assembles all the Radicals at the same time to read the ‘Patriot.’ Plenty of life and movement.”
“Is there nothing to be found more secluded, less—”
“Less fashionable, your Ladyship would observe. To be sure there is; but there ‘s objections,—at least I am sure you would dislike the prying, inquisitive spirit—Eh? Did you make an observation, miss?”
“No, Mr. Dempsey,” said Helen, with some difficulty preserving a suitable gravity. “I would only remark that you are perfectly in the right, and that my mother seeks nothing more than a place where we can remain without obtrusiveness or curiosity directed towards us.”
“There will always be the respectful admiration that beauty exacts,” replied Paul, bowing courteously, “but I can answer for the delicacy of Coleraine as for my own.”
If this assurance was not quite as satisfactory to the ladies as Mr. Dempsey might have fancied it ought to be, there was really no alternative; they knew nothing of the country, which side to direct their steps, or whither to seek shelter; besides, until they had communicated with Bicknell, they could not with safety leave the neighborhood to which all their letters were addressed.
It was then soon determined to accept Mr. Dempsey’s suggestion and safe-conduct, and leaving Tate for the present to watch over such of their effects as they could not conveniently carry with them, to set out for Coleraine. The arrangements were made as speedily as the resolve, and day had scarcely dawned ere they quitted “The Corvy.”
CHAPTER XX. MR. HEFFERNAN OUT-MANOEUVRED
It was on the very same evening that witnessed these events, that Lord Castlereagh was conducting Mr. Con Heffernan to his hotel, after a London dinner-party. The late Secretary for Ireland had himself volunteered the politeness, anxious to hear some tidings of people and events which, in the busy atmosphere of a crowded society, were unattainable. He speedily ran over a catalogue of former friends and acquaintances, learning, with that surprise with which successful men always regard their less fortunate contemporaries, that this one was still where he had left him, and that the other jogged on his daily road as before, when he suddenly asked,—
“And the Darcys, what of them?”
Heffernan shrugged his shoulders without speaking.
“I am sorry for it,” resumed the other; “sorry for the gallant old Knight himself, and sorry for a state of society in which such changes are assumed as evidences of progress and prosperity. These upstart Hickmans are not the elements of which a gentry can be formed.”
“O’Reilly still looks to you for the baronetcy, my Lord,” replied Heffernan, with a half-sneer. “You have him with or against you on that condition,—at least, so I hear.”
“Has he not had good fortune enough in this world to be satisfied? He has risen from nothing to be a man of eminence, wealth, and county influence; would it not be more reasonable in him to mature his position by a little patience, than endanger it by fresh shocks to public opinion? Even a boa, my dear Heffernan, when he swallows a goat, takes six months to digest his meal. No! no! such men must be taught reserve, if their own prudence does not suggest it!”
“I believe you are right, my Lord,” said Heffernan, thoughtfully; “O’Reilly is the very man to forget himself in the sunshine of court favor, and mistake good luck for desert.”
“With all his money, too,” rejoined Lord Castlereagh, “his influence will just be proportioned to the degree of acceptance his constituents suppose him to possess with us here. He has never graduated as a Patriot, and his slight popularity is only ‘special gratia.’ His patent of Gentleman has not come to him by birth.”
“For this reason the baronetcy—”
“Let us not discuss that,” said Lord Castlereagh, quickly. “There is an objection in a high quarter to bestow honors, which would seem to ratify the downfall of an ancient house.” He seemed to have said more than he was ready to admit, and to change the theme turned the conversation on the party they had just quitted.
“Sir George Hannaper always does these things well.”
Mr. Heffernan assented blandly, but not over eagerly. London was not “his world,” and the tone of a society so very different to what he was habituated had not made on him the most favorable impression.
“And after all,” said Lord Castlereagh, musingly, “there is a great deal of tact—ability, if you will—essential to the success of such entertainments, to bring together men of different classes and shades of opinion, people who have never met before, perhaps are never to meet again, to hit upon the subjects of conversation that may prove generally interesting, without the risk of giving undue preponderance to any one individual’s claims to superior knowledge. This demands considerable skill.”
“Perhaps the difficulty is not so great here, my Lord,” said Heffernan, half timidly, “each man understands his part so well; information and conversational power appear tolerably equally distributed; and when all the instruments are so well tuned, the leader of the orchestra has an easy task.”
“Ah! I believe I comprehend you,” said Lord Castlereagh, laughing; “you are covertly sneering at the easy and unexciting quietude of our London habits. Well, Heffernan, I admit we are not so fond of solo performances as you are in Dublin; few among us venture on those ‘obligate passages’ which are so charming to Irish ears; but don’t you think the concerted pieces are better performed?”
“I believe, my Lord,” said Heffernan, abandoning the figure in his anxiety to reply, “that we would call this dull in Ireland. I ‘m afraid that we are barbarous enough to set more store by wit and pleasantry than on grave discussion and shrewd table-talk. It appears to me that these gentlemen carry an air of business into their conviviality.”
“Scarcely so dangerous an error as to carry conviviality into business,” said Lord Castlereagh, slyly.
“There’s too much holding back,” said Heffernan, not heeding the taunt; “each man seems bent on making what jockeys call ‘a waiting race.’”
“Confess, however,” said Lord Castlereagh, smiling, “there ‘s no struggle, no hustling at the winning-post: the best horse comes in first—-”
“Upon my soul, my Lord,” said Heffernan, interrupting, “I have yet to learn that there is such a thing. I conclude from your Lordship’s observation that the company we met to-day were above the ordinary run of agreeability.”
“I should certainly say so.”
“Well, then, I can only affirm that we should call this a failure in our less polished land. I listened with becoming attention; the whole thing was new to me, and I can safely aver I neither heard one remark above the level of commonplace, nor one observation evidencing acute perception of passing events or reflection on the past. As to wit or epigram—”
“Oh, we do not value these gifts at your price; we are too thrifty a nation, Heffernan, to expend all our powder on fireworks.”
“Faith, I agree with you, my Lord; the man who would venture on a rocket would be treated as an incendiary.”
“Come, come, Heffernan, I ‘ll not permit you to say so. Did you ever in any society see a man more appreciated than our friend Darcy was the last evening we met him, his pleasantry relished, his racy humor well taken, and his stores of anecdote enjoyed with a degree of zest I have never seen surpassed?”
“Darcy was always too smooth for our present taste,” said Heffernan, caustically. “His school was antiquated years ago; there was a dash of the French courtier through the Irishmen of his day.”
“That made the most polished gentlemen of Europe, I’ve been told,” said Lord Castlereagh, interrupting. “I know your taste inclines to a less chastened and more adventurous pleasantry, shrewd insight into an antagonist’s weak point, a quick perception of the ridiculous—-”
“Allied with deep knowledge of men and motives, my Lord,” said Heffernan, catching up the sentence, “a practical acquaintance with the world in its widest sense; that cultivated keenness that smacks of reading intentions before they are avowed, and divining plans before they are more than conceived. These solid gifts are all essential to the man who would influence society, whether in a social circle or in the larger sphere of active life.”
“Ah! but we were talking of merely social qualities,” said Lord Castlereagh, stealing a cautious look of half malice, “the wit that sets the table in a roar.”
“And which, like lightning, my Lord, must now and then prove dangerous, or men will cease to be dazzled by its brilliancy. Now, I rather incline to think that the Knight’s pleasantry is like some of the claret we were drinking to-day, a little spoiled by age.”
“I protest strongly against the judgment,” said Lord Castlereagh, with energy; “the man who at his time of life consents to resume the toils and dangers of a soldier’s career must not be accused of growing old.”
“Perhaps your Lordship would rather shift the charge of senility against the Government which appoints such an officer,” said Heffernan, maliciously.
“As to that,” said Lord Castlereagh, laughingly, “I believe the whole thing was a mistake. Some jealous but indiscreet friend of Darcy’s made an application in his behalf, and without his cognizance, pressing the claim of an old and meritorious officer, and directly asking for a restitution to his grade. This was backed by Lord Netherby, one of the lords in waiting, and without much inquiry—indeed, I fancy without any—he was named colonel, in exchange from the unattached list. The Knight was evidently flattered by so signal a mark of favor, and, if I read him aright, would not change his command for a brigade at home. In fact, he has already declined prospects not less certain of success.”
“And is this really the mode in which officers are selected for an enterprise of hazard and importance?” said Heffernan, affecting a tone of startled indignation as he spoke.
“Upon my word, Heffernan,” said Lord Castlereagh, subduing the rising tendency to laugh outright, “I fear it is too true. We live in days of backstairs and court favor. I saw an application for the office of Under Secretary for Ireland, so late as yesterday—”
“You did, my Lord!” interrupted Heffernan, with more warmth than he almost ever permitted himself to feel. “You did, from a man who has rendered more unrewarded services to the Government than any individual in the kingdom.”
“The claim was a very suitable one,” said Lord Castle-reagh, mildly. “The gentleman who preferred it could point to a long list of successful operations, whose conduct rested mainly or solely on his own consummate skill and address; he could even allege the vast benefit of his advice to young and not over-informed Chief Secretaries—-”
“I would beg to observe, my Lord—-”
“Pray allow me to continue,” said Lord Castlereagh, laying his hand gently on the other’s arm. “As one of that helpless class so feelingly alluded to, I am ready to evince the deepest sense of grateful acknowledgments. It may be that I would rather have been mentioned more flatteringly; that the applicant had spoken of me as an apter and more promising scholar—-”
“My Lord, I must and will interrupt you. The memorial, which was presented in my name, was sent forward under the solemn pledge that it should meet the eyes of Mr. Pitt alone; that whether its prayer was declined or accorded, none, save himself, should have cognizance of it. If, after this, it was submitted to your Lordship’s critical examination, I leave it to your good taste and your sense of decorum how far you can avow or make use of the knowledge so obtained.”
“I was no party in the compact you allege, nor. I dare to say, was Mr. Pitt,” said Lord Castlereagh, proudly; but, momentarily resuming his former tone, he went on: “The Prime Minister, doubtless, knew how valuable the lesson might be to a young man entering on public life which should teach him not to lay too much store by his own powers of acuteness, not to trust too implicitly to his own qualities of shrewdness and perception; and that, by well reflecting on the aid he received from others, he might see how little the subtraction would leave for his own peculiar amount of skill. In this way I have to acknowledge myself greatly Mr. Heffernan’s debtor, since, without the aid of this document, I should never have recognized how ignorant I was of every party and every public man in Ireland; how dependent on his good guidance; how I never failed save in rejecting, never succeeded save in profiting by his wise and politic counsels.”
“Is your Lordship prepared to deny these assertions?” said Heffernan, with an imperturbable coolness.
“Am I not avowing my grateful sense of them?” said Lord Castlereagh, smiling blandly. “I feel only the more deeply your debtor, because, till now, I never knew the debt,—both principal and interest must be paid together; but seriously, Heffernan, if you wanted office, was I not the proper channel to have used in asking for it? Why disparage your pupil while extolling your system?”
“You did my system but little credit, my Lord,” replied Heffernan, with an accent as unmoved as before; “you bought votes when you should have bought the voters themselves; you deemed the Bill of Union the consummation of Irish policy,—it is only the first act of the piece. You were not the first general who thought he beat the enemy when he drove in the pickets.”
“Would my tactics have been better had I made one of my spies a major-general, Mr. Heffernan?” said Lord Castlereagh, sneeringly.
“Safer, my lord,—far safer,” said Heffernan, “for he might not have exposed you afterwards. But I think this is my hotel; and I must say it is the first time in my life that I have closed an interview with your Lordship without regret.”
“Am I to hope it will be the last?” said Lord Castle-reagh, laughing.
“The last interview, my Lord, or the last occasion of regretting its shortness?” said Heffernan, with a slight anxiety of voice.
“Whichever Mr. Heffernan opines most to his advantage,” was the cool reply.
“The former, with your permission, my Lord,” said Heffernan, as a flush suffused his cheek. “I wish your Lordship a very good night.”
“Good-night, good-night! Stay, Thomas, Mr. Heffernan has forgotten his gloves.”
“Thanks, my Lord; they were not left as a gage of battle, I assure you.”
“I feel certain of it,” said Lord Castlereagh, laughing. “Good-night, once more.”
The carriage rolled on, and Mr. Heffernan stood for an instant gazing after it through the gloom.
“I might have known it,” muttered he to himself; “these lords are the only people who do stick to each other nowadays.” Then, after a pause, he added, “Drogheda is right, by Jove! there ‘s no playing against ‘four by honors.’”
And with this reflection he slowly entered the hotel, and repaired to his chamber.
CHAPTER XXI. A BIT OF B Y-P L A Y.
Reverses of fortune might be far more easily supported, if they did not entail, as their inevitable consequence, the association with those all of whose tastes, habits, and opinions run in a new and different channel. It is a terrible aggravation to the loss of those comforts which habit has rendered necessaries, to unlearn the usages of a certain condition, and adopt those of a class beneath us,—or, what is still worse, engage in the daily, hourly conflict between our means and our requirements.
Perhaps Lady Eleanor Darcy and her daughter never really felt the meaning of their changed condition, nor understood its poignancy, till they saw themselves as residents of Mrs. Fumbally’s boarding-house, whither Mr. Dempsey’s polite attentions had conducted them. It was to no want of respect on that lady’s part that any portion of this feeling could be traced. “The Panther” had really behaved with the most dignified consideration; and while her new guests were presented as Mrs. and Miss Gwynne, intimated, by a hundred little adroit devices of manner, that their real rank and title were regarded by her as inviolable secrets,—not the less likely to be respected that she was herself ignorant of both. Heaven knows what secret anguish the retention of these facts cost poor Paul! secrecy being with him a quality something like Acres’ courage, which “oozed out of his fingers’ ends.” Mr. Dempsey hated those miserly souls that can treasure up a fact for their own personal enjoyment, and yet never invite a neighbor to partake of it; and it was a very inefficient consolation to him, in this instance, to throw a mysterious cloak over the strangers, and, by an air of profound consciousness, seek to impose on the other boarders. He made less scruple about what he deemed his own share of the mystery; and scarcely had Mrs. Fumbally performed the honors of the two small chambers destined for Lady Eleanor and Helen, than Paul followed her to the little apartment familiarly termed her “den,” and shutting the door, with an appearance of deep caution, took his place opposite to her at the fire.
“Well, Mr. Dempsey,” said Mrs. Fumbally, “now that all is done and settled,—now that I have taken these ladies into the ‘Establishment,’”—a very favorite designation of Mrs. Fum’s when she meant to be imposing,—“I hope I am not unreasonable iu expecting a full and complete account from you of who they are, whence they came, and, in fact, every particular necessary to satisfy me concerning them.”
“Mrs. Gwynne! Miss Gwynne! mother and daughter—Captain Gwynne, the father, on the recruiting staff in the Isle of Skye, or, if you like it better, with his regiment at St. John’s. Mrs. G———, a Miss Rickaby, one of the Rickabys of Pwhlmdlwmm, North Wales—ancient family—small estate—all spent—obliged to live retired—till—till—no matter what—a son comes of age—to sign something—or anything that way—”
“This is all fiddle-faddle, Mr. Dempsey,” said Mrs. Fum, with an expression that seemed to say, “Take care how you trifle with me.”
“To be sure it is,” rejoined Paul; “all lies, every word of it. What do you say, then, if we have her the Widow Gwynne—husband shot at Bergen-op-Zoom—”
“I say, Mr. Dempsey, that if you wish me to keep your secret before the other boarders—”
“The best way is never to tell it to you—eh, Mrs. Fum? Well, come, I will be open. Name, Gwynne—place of abode unknown—family ditto—means supposed to be ample—daughter charming—so very much so, indeed, that if Paul Dempsey were only what he ought—the Dempsey of Dempsey’s Grove—”
“Oh, is that it?” said Mrs. Fumbally, endeavoring to smile,-“is that it?”
“That’s it,” rejoined Paul, as he drew up his shirt-collar, and adjusted his cravat.
“Isn’t she very young, Mr. Dempsey?” said Mrs. Fum, slyly.
“Twenty, or thereabouts, I take it,” said Paul, carelessly,—“quite suitable as regards age.”
“I never thought you ‘d marry, Mr. Dempsey,” said Mrs. Fum, with a languishing look, that contrasted strangely with the habitually shrewish expression of the “Pauther’s” face.
“Can’t help it, Mrs. Fum. The last of the Romans! No more Dempseys when I ‘m gone, if I don’t. Elder branch all dropped off,—last twig of the younger myself.”
“Ah! these are considerations, indeed!” sighed the lady. “But don’t you think that a person more like yourself in taste—more similar in opinion of the world? She looks proud, Mr. Dempsey; I should say, overbearingly proud.”
“Rather proud myself, if that’s all,” said Dempsey, drawing himself up, and protruding his chin with a most comic imitation of dignity.
“Only becomingly so, Mr. Dempsey,—a proper sense of self-respect, a due feeling for your future position in life,—I never saw more than that, I must say. Now, I could n’t help remarking the way that young lady threw herself into the chair, and the glance she gave at the room. It was number eight, Mr. Dempsey, with the chintz furniture, and the looking-glass over the chimney! Well, really you ‘d say, it was poor Leonard’s room, with the settee bed in the corner,—the look she gave it!”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Dempsey, who really felt horrified at this undervaluing judgment of what every boarder regarded as the very sanctum of the Fumbally Temple.
“Truth, every word of it!” resumed Mrs. Fum. “I thought my ears deceived me, as she said to her mother, ‘Oh, it ‘s all very neat and clean!’—neat and clean, Mr. Dempsey! The elegant rug which I worked myself—the pointer—and the wild duck.”
“Like life, by Jove, if it was n’t that the dog has only three legs.”
“Perspective, Mr. Dempsey, don’t forget its perspective; and if the bird’s wings are maroon, I could n’t help it, it was the only color to be had in the town.”
“The group is fine,—devilish fine!” said Paul, with the air of one whose word was final.
“‘Neat and clean’ were the expressions she used. I could have cried as I heard it.” Here the lady, probably in consideration for the omission, wiped her eyes, and dropped her voice to a very sympathetic key. “She meant it well, depend upon it, Mrs. Fum, she meant it well.”
“And the old lady,” resumed Mrs. Fumbally, deaf to every consolation, “lay back in her chair this way, and said, ‘Oh, it will all do very well,—you ‘ll not find us troublesome, Mrs. Flumary!’ I haven’t been the head of this establishment eight-and-twenty years to be called Flumary. How these airs are to be tolerated by the other boarders, I’m sure is more than I can say.”
It appeared more than Mr. Dempsey could say also, if one might pronounce from the woe-begone expression of his face; for, up to this moment totally wrapped up in the mysterious portion of the affair, he had lost sight of all the conflicting interests this sudden advent would call into activity.
“That wasn’t all,” continued Mrs. Fumbally; “for when I told them the dinner-hour was five, the old lady interrupted me with, ‘For the present, with your permission, we should prefer dining at six.’ Did any one ever hear the like? I ‘ll have a pretty rebellion in the house, when it gets out! Mrs. Mackay will have her tea upstairs every night; Mr. Dunlop will always breakfast in bed. I would n’t be surprised if Miss Boyle stood out for broth in the middle of the day.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Paul, holding up both hands in horror.
“I vow and protest, I expect that next!” exclaimed Mrs. Fum, as folding her arms, and fixing her eyes rigidly on the grate, she sat, the ideal of abused and injured benevolence. “Indeed, Mr. Dempsey,” said she, after a long silence on both sides, “it would be a great breach of the regard many years of intimacy with you has formed, if I did not say, that your affections are misplaced. Beauty is a perishable gift.”
Paul looked at Mrs. Fumbally, and seemed struck with the truth of her remark.
“But the qualities of the miud, Mr. Dempsey, those rare endowments that make happy the home and hearth. You ‘re fond of beef hash with pickled onions,” said she, smiling sweetly; “well, you shall have one to-day.”
“Good creature!” muttered Paul, while he pressed her hand affectionately. “The best heart in the world!”
“Ah, yes,” sighed the lady, half soliloquizing, “conformity of temper,—the pliancy of the reed,—the tender attachment of the ivy.”
Paul coughed, and drew himself up proudly, and, as if a sudden thought occurred to him that he resembled the oak of the forest, he planted his feet firmly, and stood stiff and erect.
“You are not half careful enough about yourself, Mr. Dempsey,—never attend to changing your damp clothes,—and I assure you the climate here requires it; and when you come in cold and wet, you should always step in here, on your way upstairs, and take a little something warm and cordial. I don’t know if you approve of this,” suiting the action to the words. Mrs. Fum had opened a small cupboard in the wall, and taken out a quaint-looking flask, and a very diminutive glass.
“Nectar, by Jove,—downright nectar!”
“Made with some white currants and ginger,” chimed in Mrs. Fum, simply, as if to imply, “See what skill can effect; behold the magic power of intelligence!”
“White currants and ginger!” echoed Paul, holding out the glass to be refilled.
“A trifle of spirits, of course.”
“Of course! could n’t be comforting without it.”
“That’s what poor dear Fumbally always called, ‘Ye know, ye know!’ It was his droll way of saying ‘Noyau!’” Here Mrs. F. displayed a conflict of smiles and tears, a perfect April landscape on her features. “He had such spirits!”
“I don’t wonder, if he primed himself with this often,” said Dempsey, who at last relinquished his glass, but with evident unwillingness.
“He used to say that his was a happy home!” sobbed Mrs. Fum, while she pressed her handkerchief to her face.
Paul did not well know what he should say, or if, indeed, he was called upon to utter a sentiment at all; but he thought he could have drunk another glass to the late Fum’s memory, if his widow had n’t kept such a tight grip of the flask.
“Oh, Mr. Dempsey, who could have thought it would come to this?” The sorrowful drooping of her eyelids, as she spoke, seemed to intimate an allusion to the low state of the decanter, and Dempsey at once replied,—
“There’s a very honest glass in it still.”
“Kind—kind creature!” sobbed Mrs. Fum, as she poured out the last of the liquor. And Paul was sorely puzzled, whether the encomium applied to the defunct or himself. “Do you know, Mr. Dempsey,” here she gave a kind of hysterical giggle, that might take any turn,—hilarious, or the reverse, as events should dictate,—“do you know that as I see you there, standing before the fire, looking so pleasant and cheerful, so much at home, as a body might say, I can’t help fancying a great resemblance between you and my poor dear Fum. He was older than you,” said she, rapidly, as a slight cloud passed over Paul’s features;-“older and stouter, but he had the same jocose smile, the same merry voice, and even that little fidgety habit with the hands. I know you ‘ll forgive me,—even that was his.”
This was in all probability strictly correct, inasmuch as for several years before his demise the gifted individual had labored under a perpetual “delirium tremens.”
“He rather liked this kind of thing,” said Paul, pantomiming the action of drinking with his now empty glass.
“In moderation,-only in moderation.”
“I ‘ve heard that it disagreed with him,” rejoined Paul, who, not pleased with his counterpart, resolved on showing a knowledge of his habits.
“So it did,” sighed Mrs. Fum; “and he gave it up in consequence.”
“I heard that, too,” said Paul; and then muttered to himself, “on the morning he died.”
A gentle tap at the door now broke in upon the colloquy, and a very slatternly servant woman, with bare legs and feet, made her appearance.
“What d’ye want, Biddy?” asked her mistress, in an angry voice. “I ‘m just settling accounts with Mr. Dempsey, and you bounce in as if the house was on fire.”
“It ‘s just himsel ‘s wanted,” replied the northern maiden; “the leddie canna get on ava without him, he maun come up to number ‘eight,’ as soon as he can.”
“I ‘m ready,” quoth Paul, as he turned to arrange his cravat, and run his hand through his hair; “I ‘m at their service.”
“Remember, Mr. Dempsey, remember, that what I’ve spoken to you this day is in the strictest confidence. If matters have proceeded far with the young lady upstairs, if your heart, if hers be really engaged, forget everything,—forget me.”
Mrs. Fumbally’s emotion had so overpowered her towards the end of her speech, that she rushed into an adjoining closet and clapped-to the door, an obstacle that only acted as a sound-board to her sobs, and from which Paul hastened with equal rapidity to escape.
An entire hemisphere might have separated the small chamber where Mr. Dempsey’s late interview took place from the apartment on the first floor, to which he now was summoned, and so, to do him justice, did Paul himself feel; and not all the stimulating properties of that pleasant cordial could allay certain tremors of the heart, as he turned the handle of the door.
Lady Eleanor was seated at a writing-table, and Helen beside her, working, as Mr. Dempsey entered, and, after a variety of salutations, took a chair, about the middle of the room, depositing his hat and umbrella beside him.
“It would seem, Mr. Dempsey,” said Lady Eleanor, with a very benign smile, “it would seem that we have made a very silly mistake; one, I am bound to say, you are quite exonerated from any share in, and the confession of which will, doubtless, exhibit my own and my daughter’s cleverness in a very questionable light before you. Do you know, Mr. Dempsey, we believed this to be an inn.”
“An inn!” broke in Paul, with uplifted hands.
“Yes, and it was only by mere accident we have discovered our error, and that we are actually in a boarding-house. Pray now, Helen, do not laugh, the blunder is quite provoking enough already.”
Why Miss Darcy should laugh, and what there could be to warrant the use of the epithet, “provoking,” Paul might have been broken on the wheel without being able to guess, while Lady Eleanor went on,—
“Now, it would seem customary for the guests to adopt here certain hours in common,—breakfasting, dining together, and associating like the members of one family.”
Paul nodded an assent, and she resumed.
“I need scarcely observe to you, Mr. Dempsey, how very unsuited either myself or Miss Darcy would be to such an assembly, if even present circumstances did not more than ever enjoin a life of strict retirement.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed Paul in a tone of deprecation, “there never was anything more select than this. Mother Fum never admits without a reference; I can show you the advertisement in the Derry papers. We kept the Collector out for two months, till he brought us a regular bill of health, as a body might say.”
“Could you persuade them to let us remain in ‘Quarantine,’ then, for a few days?” said Helen, smiling.
“Oh, no! Helen, nothing of the kind; Mr. Dempsey must not be put to any troublesome negotiations, on our account. There surely must be an hotel of some sort in the town.”
“This is a nice mess!” muttered Paul, who began to anticipate some of the miseries his good nature might cost him.
“A few days, a week at furthest, I hope, will enable us to communicate with our law adviser, and decide upon some more suitable abode. Could you, then, for the meanwhile, suggest a comfortable inn, or if not, a lodging in the town?”
Paul wrung his hands in dismay, but uttered not a syllable.
“To be candid, Mr. Dempsey,” said Helen, “my father has a horror of these kind of places, and you could recommend us no country inn, however humble, where he would not be better pleased to hear of our taking refuge.”
“But, Fumbally’s! the best-known boarding-house in the North.”
“I should be sincerely grieved, to be understood as uttering one syllable in its disparagement,” rejoined Lady Eleanor; “I could not ask for a more satisfactory voucher of its respectability; but ours are peculiar circumstances.”
“Only a pound a week,” struck in Paul, “with extras.”
“Nothing could be more reasonable; but pray understand me, I speak of course in great ignorance, but it would appear to me that persons living together in this fashion have a kind of right to know something of those who present themselves for the first time amongst them. Now, there are many reasons why neither my daughter nor myself would like to submit to this species of inquiry.”
“I ‘ll settle all that,” broke in Paul; “leave that to me, and you ‘ll have no further trouble about it.”
“You must excuse my reliance even on such discretion,” said Lady Eleanor, with more hauteur than before.
“Are we to understand that there is neither inn nor lodging-house to be found?” said Helen.
“Plenty of both, but full of bagmen,” ejaculated Paul, whose contrivances were all breaking down beneath him.
“What is to be done?” exclaimed Lady Eleanor to her daughter.
“Lord bless you!” cried Paul, in a whining voice, “if you only come down amongst them with that great frill round your neck you wore the first day I saw you at ‘The Corvy,’ you ‘ll scare them so, they ‘ll never have courage to utter a word. There was Miss Daly—when she was here—”
“Miss Daly,-Miss Maria Daly!” exclaimed both ladies together.
“Miss Maria Daly,” repeated Dempsey, with an undue emphasis on every syllable. “She spent the summer with us on the coast.”
“Where had she resided up to that time, may I ask?” said Lady Eleanor, hastily.
“At ‘The Corvy’—always at ‘The Corvy,’ until your arrival.”
“Oh, Helen, think of this!” whispered Lady Eleanor, in a voice tremulous with agitation. “Think what sacrifices we have exacted from our friends,—and now, to learn that while we stand hesitating about encountering the inconveniences of our lot, that we have been subjecting another to that very same difficulty from which we shrink.” Then, turning to Mr. Dempsey, she added,—
“I need not observe, sir, that while I desire no mystery to be thrown around our arrival here, I will not be the less grateful for any restraint the good company may impose on themselves as to inquiries concerning us. We are really not worth the attention, and I should be sorry to impose upon kind credulity by any imaginary claim to distinction.”
“You’ll dine below, then?” asked Paul, far more eager to ascertain this fact than any reasons that induced it.
Lady Eleanor bowed; and Dempsey, with a face beaming with delight, arose to withdraw and communicate the happy news to Mrs. Fumbally.
CHAPTER XXII. A GLANCE AT MRS. FUMBALLY’S.
Great as Lady Eleanor’s objection was to subjecting herself or her daughter to the contact of a boarding-house party, when the resolve was once taken the matter cost her far less thought or anxiety than it occasioned to the other inmates of the “Establishment.” It is only in such segments of the great world that curiosity reaches its true intensity, and the desire to know every circumstance of one’s neighbor becomes an absorbing passion. A distrustful impression that nobody is playing on “the square “—that every one has some special cause of concealment, some hidden shame—seems the presiding tone of these places.
Mrs. Fumbally’s was no exception to the rule, and now that the residents had been so long acquainted that the personal character and fortune of each was known to all, the announcement of a new arrival caused the most lively sensations of anxiety.
Directories were ransacked for the name of Gwynne, and every separate owner of the appellation canvassed and discussed. Army lists were interrogated and conned over. Dempsey himself was examined for two hours before a “Committee of the whole house;” and though his inventive powers were no mean gifts, certain discrepancies, certain unexplained difficulties, did not fail to strike the acute tribunal, and he was dismissed as unworthy of credit. Baffled, not beaten, each retired to dress for dinner,—a ceremony, be it remarked, only in use on great occasions,—fully impressed with the conviction that the Gwynne case was a legitimate object of search and discovery.
It is not necessary here to allude to the strange display of costume that day called forth, nor what singular extravagances in dress each drew from the armory of his fascinations. The collector closed the Custom-house an hour earlier, that he might be properly powdered for the occasion. Miss Boyle abandoned, “for the nonce,” her accustomed walk on the Banside, where the officers used to lounge, and in the privacy of her chamber prepared for the event. There is a tradition of her being seen, with a formidable array of curl-papers, so late as four in the afternoon. Mr. Dunlop was in a perpetual trot all day, between his tailor and his bootmaker, sundry alterations being required at a moment’s notice. Mrs. Fumbally herself, however, eclipsed all competitors, as, in a robe of yellow satin, spotted with red, she made her appearance in the drawing-room; her head-dress being a turban of the same prevailing colors, but ornamented by a drooping plume of feathers and spangles so very umbrageous and pendent, that she looked like a weeping-ash clad in tinsel. A crimson brooch of vast proportions—which, on near inspection, turned out to be a portrait of the departed Fumbally, but whose colors were, unhappily, not “fast ones”—confined a scarf of green velvet, from which envious time had worn off all the pile, and left a “sear and yellow” stubble everywhere perceptible.
Whether Mrs. Fum’s robe had been devised at a period when dresses were worn much shorter, or that, from being very tall, a sufficiency of the material could not be obtained,—but true it is, her costume would have been almost national in certain Scotch regiments, and necessitated, for modesty’s sake, a peculiar species of ducking trip, that, with the nodding motion of her head, gave her the gait of a kangaroo.
Scarcely had the various individuals time to give a cursory glance at their neighbors’ finery, when Lady Eleanor appeared leaning on her daughter’s arm. Mr. Dempsey had waited for above half an hour outside the door to offer his escort, which being coldly but civilly declined, the ladies entered.
Mrs. Fumbally rose to meet her guests, and was about to proceed in due form with a series of introducings, when Lady Eleanor cut her short by a very slight but courteous salutation to the company collectively, and then sat down.
The most insufferable assumption of superiority is never half so chilling in its effect upon underbred people as the calm quietude of good manners.
And thus the party were more repelled by Lady Eleanor and her daughter’s easy bearing than they would have felt at any outrageous pretension. The elegant simplicity of their dress, too, seemed to rebuke the stage finery of the others, and very uneasy glances met and were interchanged at this new companionship. A few whispered words, an occasional courageous effort to talk aloud, suddenly ending in a cough, and an uneasy glance at the large silver watch over the chimney, were all that took place, when the uncombed head of a waiter, hired specially for the day, gave the announcement that dinner was served.
“Mr. Dempsey—Mr. Dunlop,” said Mrs. Fumbally, with a gesture towards Lady Eleanor and her daughter. The gentlemen both advanced a step and then stood stock still, as Lady Eleanor, drawing her shawl around her with one hand, slipped the other within her daughter’s arm. Every eye was now turned towards Mr. Dunlop, who was a kind of recognized type of high life; and he, feeling the urgency of the moment, made a step in advance, and with extended arm, said, “May I have the honor to offer my arm?”
“With your leave, I’ll take my daughter’s, sir,” said Lady Eleanor, coldly; and without paying the least attention to the various significant glances around her, she walked forward to the dinner-room.
The chilling reserve produced by the new arrivals had given an air of decorous quietude to the dinner, which, if gratifying to Lady Eleanor and Helen, was very far from being so to the others, and as the meal proceeded, certain low mutterings—the ground swell of a coming storm—announced the growing feeling of displeasure amongst them. Lady Eleanor and Miss Darcy were too unconscious of having offered any umbrage to the party to notice these indications of discontent; nor did they remark that Mr.
Dempsey himself was becoming overwhelmed by the swelling waves of popular indignation.
A very curt monosyllable had met Lady Eleanor in the two efforts she had made at conversation with her neighbor, and she was perhaps not very sorry to find that table-talk was not a regulation of the “Establishment”.
Had Lady Eleanor or Helen been disposed to care for it, they might have perceived that the dinner itself was not less anomalous than the company, and like them suffered sorely from being over-dressed. They, however, affected to eat, and seemed satisfied with everything, resolved that, having encountered the ordeal, they would go through with it to the last. The observances of the table had one merit in the Fumbally household; they were conducted with no unnecessary tediousness. The courses—if we dare so apply the name to an irregular skirmish of meats, hot, cold, and réchauffé—followed rapidly, the guests ate equally so, and the table presented a scene, if not of convivial enjoyment, at least of bustle and animation, that supplied its place. This movement, so to call it, was sufficiently new to amuse Helen Darcy, who, less pained than her mother at their companionship, could not help relishing many of the eccentric features of the scene; everything in the dress, manner, tone of voice, and bearing of the company presenting such a striking contrast to all she had been used to. This enjoyment on her part, although regulated by the strictest good-breeding, was perceived, or rather suspected, by some of the ladies present, and looks of very unmistakable anger were darted towards her from the end of the table, so that both mother and daughter felt the moment a very welcome one when a regiment of small decanters were set down on the board, and the ladies rose to withdraw.
If Lady Eleanor had consulted her own ardent wishes, she would at once have retired to her room, but she had resolved on the whole sacrifice, and took her place in the drawing-room, determined to follow in every respect the usages around her. Mrs. Fumbally addressed a few civil words to her, and then left the room to look after the cares of the household. The group of seven ladies who remained, formed themselves into a coterie apart, and producing from sundry bags and baskets little specimens of female handiwork, began arranging their cottons and worsteds with a most praiseworthy activity.
While Lady Eleanor sat with folded bands and half-closed lids, sunk in her own meditations, Helen arose and walked towards a book-shelf, where some well-thumbed volumes were lying. An odd volume of “Delphine,” a “Treatise on Domestic Cookery,” and “Moore’s Zeluco” were not attractive, and she sauntered to the piano, on which were scattered some of the songs from the “Siege of Belgrade,” the then popular piece; certain comic melodies lay also among them, inscribed with the name of Lawrence M’Farland, a gentleman whom they had heard addressed several times during dinner. While Helen turned over the music pages, the eyes of the others were riveted on her; and when she ran her fingers over the keys of the cracked old instrument, and burst into an involuntary laugh at its discordant tones, a burst of unequivocal indignation could no longer be restrained.
“I declare, Miss M’Corde,” said an old lady with a paralytic shake in her head, and a most villanous expression in her one eye,—“I declare I would speak to her, if I was in your place.”
“Unquestionably,” exclaimed another, whose face was purple with excitement; and thus encouraged, a very thin and very tall personage, with a long, slender nose tipped with pink, and light red hair in ringlets, arose from her seat, and approached where Helen was standing.
“You are perhaps not aware, ma’am,” said she, with a mincing, lisping accent, the very essence of gentility, “that this instrument is not a ‘house piano.’”
Helen blushed slightly at the address, but could not for her life guess what the words meant. She had heard of grand pianos and square pianos, of cottage pianos, but never of “house pianos,” and she answered in the most simple of voices, “Indeed.”
“No, ma’am, it is not; it belongs to your very humble servant,”—here she courtesied to the ground,-“who regrets deeply that its tone should not have more of your approbation.”
“And I, ma’am,” said a fat old lady, waddling over, and wheezing as though she should choke, “I have to express my sorrow that the book-shelf, which you have just ransacked, should not present something worthy of your notice. The volumes are mine.”
“And perhaps, ma’am,” cried a third, a little meagre figure, with a voice like a nutmeg-grater, “you could persuade the old lady, who I presume is your mother, to take her feet off that worked stool. When I made it, I scarcely calculated on the honor it now enjoys!”
Lady Eleanor looked up at this instant, and although unconscious of what was passing, seeing Helen, whose face was now crimson, standing in the midst of a very excited group, she arose hastily, and said,—
“Helen, dearest, is there anything the matter?”
“I should say there was, ma’am,” interposed the very fat lady,—“I should be disposed to say there was a great deal the matter. That to make use of private articles as if they were for house use, to thump one lady’s piano, to toss another lady’s books, to make oneself comfortable in a chair specially provided for the oldest boarder, with one’s feet on another lady’s footstool,—these are liberties, ma’am, which become something more than freedoms when taken by unknown individuals.”
“I beg you will forgive my daughter and myself,” said Lady Eleanor, with an air of real regret; “our total ignorance—”
“I thought as much, indeed,” muttered she of the shaking head; “there is no other word for it.”
“You are quite correct, ma’am,” said Lady Eleanor, at once addressing her in the most apologetic of voices,-“I cannot but repeat the word; our very great ignorance of the usages observed here is our only excuse, and I beg you to believe us incapable of taking such liberties in future.”
If anything could have disarmed the wrath of this Holy Alliance, the manner in which these words were uttered might have done so. Far from it, however. When the softer sex are deficient in breeding, mercy is scarcely one of their social attributes. Had Lady Eleanor assumed towards them the manner with which in other days she had repelled vulgar attempts at familiarity, they would in all probability have shrunk back, abashed and ashamed; but her yielding suggested boldness, and they advanced, with something like what in Cossack warfare is termed a “Hurra,” an indiscriminate clang of voices being raised in reprobation of every supposed outrage the unhappy strangers had inflicted on the company. Amid this Babel of accusation Lady Eleanor could distinguish nothing, and while, overwhelmed by the torrent, she was preparing to take her daughter’s arm and withdraw, the door which led into the dining-room was suddenly thrown open, and the convivial party entered en masse.
“Here’s a shindy, by George!” cried Mr. M’Farland,—the Pickle, and the wit of the Establishment,—“I say, see how the new ones are getting it!”
While Mr. Dempsey hurried away to seek Mrs. Fumbally herself, the confusion and uproar increased; the loud, coarse laughter of the “Gentlemen” being added to the wrathful violence of the softer sex. Lady Eleanor, how-ever, had drawn her daughter to her side, and without uttering a word, proceeded to leave the room. To this course a considerable obstacle presented itself in the shape of the Collector, who, with expanded legs, and hands thrust deep into his side-pockets, stood against the door.
“Against the ninth general rule, ma’am, which you may read in the frame over the chimney!” exclaimed he, in a voice somewhat more faltering and thicker than became a respectable official. “No lady or gentleman can leave the room while any dispute in which they are concerned remains unsettled. Isn’t that it, M’Farland?” cried he, as the young gentleman alluded to took down the law-table from its place.
“All right,” replied M’Farland; “the very best rule in the house. Without it, all the rows would take place in private! Now for a court of inquiry. Mr. Dunlop, you are for the prosecution, and can’t sit.”
“May I beg, sir, you will permit us to pass out?” said Lady Eleanor, in a voice whose composure was slightly shaken.
“Can’t be, ma’am; in contravention of all law,” rejoined the Collector.
“Where is Mr. Dempsey?” whispered Helen, in her despair; and though the words were uttered in a low voice, one of the ladies overheard them. A general titter ran immediately around, only arrested by the fat lady exclaiming aloud, “Shameless minx!”
A very loud hubbub of voices outside now rivalled the tumult within, amid which one most welcome was distinguished by Helen.
“Oh, mamma, how fortunate! I hear Tate’s voice.”
“It’s me,—it’s Mrs. Fumbally,” cried that lady, at the same moment tapping sharply at the door.
“No matter, can’t open the door now. Court is about to sit,” replied the Collector. “Mrs. Gwynne stands arraigned for—for what is’t? There ‘s no use in making that clatter; the door shall not be opened.”
This speech was scarcely uttered, when a tremendous bang was heard, and the worthy Collector, with the door over him, was hurled on his face in the midst of the apartment, upsetting in his progress a round table and a lamp over the assembled group of ladies.
Screams of terror, rage, pain, and laughter were now commingled; and while some assisted the prostrate official to rise, and sprinkled his temples with water, others bestowed their attentions on the discomfited fair, whose lustre was sadly diminished by lamp-oil and bruises, while a third section, of which M’Farland was chief, lay back in their chairs and laughed vociferously. Meanwhile, how and when nobody could tell, Lady Eleanor and her daughter had escaped and gained their apartments in safety.
A more rueful scene than the room presented need not be imagined. The Collector, whose nose bled profusely, sat pale, half fainting, in one corner, while some kind friends labored to stop the bleeding, and restore him to animation. Lamentations of the most poignant grief were uttered over silks, satins, and tabinets irretrievably ruined; while the paralytic lady having broken the ribbon of her cap, her head rolled about fearfully, and even threatened to come clean off altogether. As for poor Mrs. Fumbally, she flew from place to place, in a perfect agony of affliction; now wringing her hands over the prostrate door, now over the fragments of the lamp, and now endeavoring to restore the table, which, despite all her efforts, would not stand upon two legs. But the most miserable figure of all was Paul Dempsey, who saw no footing for himself anywhere. Lady Eleanor and Helen must detest him to the day of his death. The boarders could never forgive him. Mrs. Fum would as certainly regard him as the author of all evil, and the Collector would inevitably begin dunning him for an unsettled balance of fourteen and ninepence, lost at “Spoiled five” two winters before.
Already, indeed, symptoms of his unpopularity began to show themselves. Angry looks and spiteful glances were directed towards him, amidst muttered expressions of displeasure. How far these manifestations might have proceeded there is no saying, had not the attention of the company been drawn to the sudden noise of a carriage stopping at the street door.
“Going, flitting, evacuating the territory!” exclaimed M’Farland, as from an open window he contemplated the process of packing a post-chaise with several heavy trunks and portmanteaus.
“The Gwynnes!” muttered the Collector, with his handkerchief to his face.
“Even so! flying with camp equipage and all. There stands your victor, that little old fellow with the broad shoulders. I say, come here a moment,” called he aloud, making a sign for Tate to approach. “The Collector is not in the least angry for what’s happened; he knew you did n’t mean anything serious. Pray, who are these ladies, your mistresses I mean?”
“Lady Eleanor Darcy and Miss Darcy, of Gwynne Abbey,” replied Tate, sturdily, as he gave the names with a most emphatic distinctness.
“The devil it was!” exclaimed M’Farland.
“By my conscience, ye may well wonder at being in such company, sir,” said Tate, laughing, and resuming his place just in time to assist Lady Eleanor to ascend the steps. Helen quickly followed, the door was slammed to, and, Tate mounting with the alacrity of a town footman, the chaise set out at a brisk pace down the street.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE COAST IN WINTER
Although Tate Sullivan had arrived in Coleraine and provided himself with a chaise expressly to bring his mistress and her daughter back to “The Corvy,”—from which the sheriff’s officers had retired in discomfiture, on discovering the loss of their warrants,—Lady Eleanor, dreading a renewal of the law proceedings, had determined never to return thither.
From the postilion they learned that a small but not uncomfortable lodging could be had near the little village of Port Ballintray, and to this spot they now directed their course. The transformation of a little summer watering-place into the dismal village of some poor fishermen in winter, is a sad spectacle; nor was the picture relieved by the presence of the fragments of a large vessel, which, lately lost with all its crew, hung on the rocks, thumping and clattering with every motion of the waves. By the faint moonlight Lady Eleanor and her daughter could mark the outlines of figures, as they waded in the tide or clambered along the rocks, stripping the last remains of the noble craft, and contending with each other for the spoils of the dead.
If the scene itself was a sorrowful one, it was no less painful to their eyes from feeling a terrible similitude between their own fortunes and that of the wrecked vessel; the gallant ship, meant to float in its pride over the ocean, now a broken and shattered wreck, falling asunder with each stroke of the sea!
“How like and yet how unlike!” sighed Lady Eleanor; “if these crushed and shattered timbers have no feeling in the hour of adversity, yet are they denied the glorious hopefulness that in the saddest moments clings to humanity. Ours is shipwreck, too, but, taken at its worst, is only temporary calamity!”
Helen pressed her mother’s hands with fervor to her lips; perhaps never had she loved her with more intensity than at that instant.
The chaise drew up at the door of a little cabin, built at the foot of, and, as it actually seemed, against a steep rocky cliff of great height. In summer it was regarded as one of the best among the surrounding lodgings, but now it looked dreary enough. A fishing-boat, set up on one end, formed a kind of sheltering porch to the doorway; while spars, masts, and oars were lashed upon the thatch, to serve as a protection against the dreadful gales of winter.
A childless widow was the only occupant, whose scanty livelihood was eked out by letting lodgings to the summer visitors,—a precarious subsistence, which in bad seasons, and they were not unfrequent, failed altogether. It was with no small share of wonderment that Mary Spellan—or “old Molly,” as the village more usually called her—saw a carriage draw up to the cabin door late of a dark night in winter; nor was this feeling unalloyed by a very strong tincture of suspicion, for Molly was an Antrim woman, and had her proportion of the qualities, good and bad, of the “Black North.”
“They ‘ll no be makin’ a stay on’t,” said she to the postboy, who, in his capacity of interpreter, had got down to explain to Molly the requirements of the strangers. “They ‘ll be here to-day and awa to-morrow, I ‘m thenkin’,” said she, with habitual and native distrust. “And what for wull I make a ‘hottle’”—no greater indignity could be offered to the lodging-house keeper than to compare the accommodation in any respect with that of an hotel—“of my wee bit house, takin’ out linen and a’ the rest o’ it for maybe a day or twa.”
Lady Eleanor, who watched from the window of the chaise the course of the negotiations without hearing any part of the colloquy, was impatient at the slow progress events seemed to take, and supposing that the postboy’s demands were made with more regard to their habits than to old Molly’s means of accommodation, called out,—
“Tell the good woman that we are easily satisfied; and if the cabin be but clean and quiet—”
“What’s the leddie sayin’?” said Molly, who heard only a stray word, and that not overpleasing to her.
“She ‘s saying it will do very well,” said the postboy, conciliatingly, “and ‘tis maybe a whole year she ‘ll stay with you.”
“Ech, dearee me!” sighed Molly, “it’s wearisome enough to hae’ them a’ the summer, without hae’ing them in the winter too. Tell her to come ben, and see if she likes the place.” And with this not over-courteous proposal, Molly turned her back, and rolled, rather thau walked, into the cabin.
The three little rooms which comprised the whole suite destined for strangers, were, in all their poverty, scrupulously clean; and Molly, gradually thawed by the evident pretensions of her guests, volunteered little additions to the furniture, as she went along, concluding with the very characteristic remark,—
“But ye maun consider, that it’s no my habit, or my likin’ either, to hae lodgers in the winter; and af ye come, ye maun e’en pay for your whistle, like ither folk.”
This was the arrangement that gave Lady Eleanor the least trouble; and though the terms demanded were in reality exorbitant, they were acceded to without hesitation by those who never had had occasion to make similar compacts, and believed that the sum was a most reasonable one.
As is ever the case, the many wants and inconveniences of a restricted dwelling were far more placidly endured by those long habituated to every luxury than by their followers; and so, while Lady Eleanor and Helen submitted cheerfully to daily privations of one kind or other, Tate lived a life of everlasting complaint and grumbling over the narrow accommodation of the cabin, continually irritating old Molly by demands impossible to comply with, and suggesting the necessity of changes perfectly out of her power to effect. It is but justice to the faithful old butler to state, that to this line of conduct he was prompted by what he deemed due to his mistress and her high station, rather than by any vain hope of ever succeeding, his complaints being less demands for improvement than after the fashion of those “protests” which dissentient members of a legislature think it necessary to make in cases where opposition is unavailing.
These half-heard mutterings of Tate were the only interruptions to a life of sad but tranquil monotony. Lady Eleanor and her daughter lived as though in a long dream; the realities around them so invested with sameness and uniformity that days, weeks, and months blended into each other, and became one commingled mass of time, undivided and unmarked. Of the world without they heard but little; of those dearest to them, absolutely nothing. The very newspapers maintained a silence on the subject of the expedition under Abercrombie, so that of the Knight himself they had no tidings whatever. Of Daly they only heard once, at the end of one of Bicknell’s letters, one of those gloomy records of the law’s delay; that he said, “You will be sorry to learn that Mr. Bagenal Daly, having omitted to appear personally or by counsel in a cause lately called on here, has been cast in heavy damages, and pronounced in contempt, neither of which inflictions will probably give him much uneasiness, if, as report speaks, he has gone to pass the remainder of his days in America. Miss Daly speaks of joining him, when she learns that he has fixed on any spot of future residence.” The only particle of consolation extractable from the letter was in a paragraph at the end, which ran thus: “O’Reilly’s solicitor has withdrawn all the proceedings lately commenced, and there is an evident desire to avoid further litigation. I hear that for the points now in dispute an arbitration will be proposed. Would you feel disposed or free to accept such an offer, if made? Let me know this, as I should be prepared at all events.”
Even this half-confession of a claim gave hope to the drooping spirits of Lady Eleanor, and she lost no time in acquainting Bicknell with her opinion that while they neither could nor would compromise the rights of their son, for any interests actually their own, and terminating with their lives, they would willingly adopt any arrangement that should remove the most pressing evils of poverty, and permit them to live united for the rest of their days.
The severe winter of northern Ireland closed in, with all its darkening skies and furious storms; scattered fragments of wrecked vessels, spars, and ship-gear strewed the rocky coast for miles. The few cottages here and there were closed and barricaded as if against an enemy, the roofs fastened down by ropes and heavy implements of husbandry, to keep safe the thatch; the boats of the fishermen drawn up on land, grouped round the shealings in sad but not unpicturesque confusion. The ever-restless sea beating like thunder upon that iron shore, the dark impending clouds lowering over cliff and precipice, were all that the eye could mark. No cattle were on the hills; the sheep nestling in the little glens and valleys were almost undistinguishable from the depth of gloom around; not a man was to be seen.
The little village of Port Ballintray, which a few months before abounded in all the sights and sounds of human intercourse, was now perfectly deserted. Most of the cottages were fastened on the inside; in some the doors, burst open by the storm, showed still more unquestionably that no dwellers remained; the little gardens, tended with such care, were now uprooted and devastated; fallen trellises and ruined porches were seen on every side; and even Mrs. Fumbally’s, the pride and glory of the place, had not escaped the general wreck, and the flaunting archway, on which, in bright letters, her name was inscribed, hung pensively by one pillar, and waved like a sad pendulum, “counting the weary minutes over!”
While nothing could less resemble the signs of habitation than the aspect of matters without, within a fire burned on more than one hearth, and a serving-woman was seen moving from place to place occupied in making those arrangements which bespoke the speedy arrival of visitors.
It was long after nightfall that a travelling carriage and four—a rare sight in such a place, even in the palmiest days of summer—drew up at the front of the little garden, and after some delay a very old and feeble man was lifted out, and carried between two servants into the house; he was followed by another, whose firm step and erect figure indicated the prime of life; while after him again came a small man, most carefully protected by coats and comforters against the severity of the season. He walked lame, and in the shuddering look he gave around in the short transit from the carriage to the house-door, showed that such prospects, however grand and picturesque, had few charms for him.
A short interval elapsed after the luggage was removed from the carriage, and then one of the servants mounted the box, the horses’ beads were turned, and the conveyance was seen retiring by the road to Coleraine.
The effective force of Mrs. Fum’s furniture was never remarkable, in days of gala and parade; it was still less imposing now, when nothing remained save an invalided garrison of deal chairs and tables, a few curtainless beds, and a stray chest of drawers or two of the rudest fashion.
The ample turf fire on the hearth of the chief sitting-room, cheering and bright as was its aspect, after the dark and rainy scene without doors, could not gladden the air of these few and comfortless movables into a look of welcome; and so one of the newly arrived party seemed to feel, as he threw his glance over the meagre-looking chamber, and in a half-complaining, half-inquiring tone, said,—
“Don’t you think, sir, they might have done this a little better? These windows are no defence against the wind or rain, the walls are actually soaked with wet; not a bit of carpet, not a chair to sit upon! I ‘m greatly afraid for the old gentleman; if he were to be really ill in such a place—”
A heavy fit of coughing from the inner room now seemed to corroborate the suspicion.
“We must make the best of it, Nalty,” said the other. “Remember, the plan was of your own devising; there was no time for much preparation here, if even it had been prudent or possible to make it; and as to my father, I warrant you his constitution is as good as yours or mine; anxiety about this business has preyed upon him; but let your plan only succeed, and I warrant him as able to undergo fatigue and privation as either of us.”
“His cough is very troublesome,” interposed Nalty, timidly.
“About the same I have known it every winter since I was a boy,” said the other, carelessly. “I say, sir,” added he, louder, while he tapped the door with his knuckles,—“I say, sir, Nalty is afraid you have caught fresh cold.”
“Tell him his annuity is worth three years’ purchase,” said the old man from within, with a strange unearthly effort at a laugh. “Tell him, if he ‘ll pay five hundred pounds down, I ‘ll let him run his own life against mine in the deed.”
“There, you hear that, Nalty! What say you to the proposal?”
“Wonderful old man! astonishing!” muttered Nalty, evidently not flattered at the doubts thus suggested as to his own longevity.
“He doesn’t seem to like that, Bob, eh?” called out the old man, with another cackle.
“After that age they get a new lease, sir,—actually a new lease of life,” whispered Nalty.
Mr. O’Reilly—for it was that gentleman, who, accompanied by his father and confidential lawyer, formed the party—gave a dry assent to the proposition, and drawing his chair closer to the fire, seemed to occupy himself with his own thoughts. Meanwhile the old doctor continued to maintain a low muttering conversation with his servant, until at length the sounds were exchanged for a deep snoring respiration, and he slept.
The appearance of a supper, which, if not very appetizing, was at least very welcome, partially restored the drooping spirits of Mr. Nalty, who now ate and talked with a degree of animation quite different from his former mood.
“The ham is excellent, sir, and the veal very commendable,” said he, perceiving that O’Reilly sat with his untouched plate before him, “and a glass of sherry is very grateful after such a journey.”
“A weary journey, indeed,” said O’Reilly, sighing: “the roads in this part of the island would seem seldom travelled, and the inns never visited; however, if we succeed, Nalty—”
“So we shall, sir, I have not the slightest doubt of it; it is perfectly evident that they have no money to go on. ‘The sinews of war’ are expended, all Bicknell’s late proceedings indicate a failing exchequer; that late record, for instance, at Westport, should never have been left to a common jury.”
“All this may be true, and yet we may find them unwilling to adopt a compromise: there is a spirit in this class of men very difficult to deal with.”
“But we have two expedients,” interrupted Nalty.
“Say, rather, a choice between two; you forget that if we try my father’s plan, the other can never be employed.”
“I incline to the other mode of procedure,” said Nalty, thoughtfully; “it has an appearance of frankness and candor very likely to influence people of this kind; besides, we have such a strong foundation to go upon,—the issue of two trials at bar, both adverse to them, O’Grady’s opinion on the ejectment cases equally opposed to their views. The expense of a suit in equity to determine the validity of the entail, and show how far young Darcy can be a plaintiff: then the cases for a jury; all costly matters, sir! Bicknell knows this well; indeed, if the truth were out, I suspect Sam is getting frightened about his own costs, he has sold out of the funds twice to pay fees.”
“Yet the plan is a mere compromise, after all,” said O’Reilly; “it is simply saying, relinquish your right, and accept so much money.”
“Not exactly, sir; we deny the right, we totally reject the claim, we merely say, forego proceedings that are useless, spare yourselves and us the cost and publicity of legal measures, whose issue never can benefit you, and, in return for your compliance, receive an annuity or a sum, as may be agreed upon.”
“But how is Lady Eleanor to decide upon a course so important, in the absence of her husband and her son? Is it likely, is it possible, she would venture on so bold a step?”
“I think so; Bicknell half acknowledged that the funds of the suit were her jointure, and that Darcy, out of delicacy towards her, had left it entirely at her option to continue or abandon the proceedings.”
“Still,” said O’Reilly, “a great difficulty remains; for supposing them to accept our terms, that they give up the claim and accept a sum in return, what if at some future day evidence should turn up to substantiate their views,—they may not, it is true, break the engagement—though I don’t see why they should not—but let us imagine them to be faithful to the contract,-what will the world say? In what position shall we stand when the matter gains publicity?”
“How can it, sir?” interposed Nalty, quickly; “how is it possible, if there be no trial? The evidence, as you call it, is no evidence unless produced in court. You know, sir,” said the little man, with twinkling eyes and pleased expression, “that a great authority at common law only declined the testimony of a ghost because the spirit was n’t in court to be cross-examined. Now all they could bring would be rumor, newspaper allegations and paragraphs, asterisks and blanks.”
“There may come a time when public opinion, thus expounded, will be as stringent as the judgments of the law courts,” said O’Reilly, thoughtfully.
“I am not so certain of that, sir; the license of an unfettered press will always make its decisions inoperative; it is ‘the chartered libertine’ the poet speaks of.”
“But what if, yielding to public impression, it begins to feel that its weight is in exact proportion to its truth, that well-founded opinions, just judgments, correct anticipations, obtain a higher praise and price than scandalous anecdotes and furious attacks? What if that day should arrive, Nalty? I am by no means convinced that such an era is distant.”
“Let it come, sir,” said the little man, rubbing his hands, “and when it does there will be enough employment on its hand without going back on our trangressions; the world will always be wicked enough to keep the moralist at his work of correction. But to return to our immediate object, I perceive you are inclined to Dr. Hickman’s plan.”
“I am so far in its favor,” said O’Reilly, “that it solves the present difficulty, and prevents all future danger. Should my father succeed in persuading Lady Eleanor to this marriage, the interest of the two families is inseparably united. It is very unlikely that any circumstance, of what nature soever, would induce young Darcy to dispute his sister’s claim, or endanger her position in society. This settlement of the question is satisfactory in itself, and shows a good face to the world, and I confess I am curious to know what peculiar objection you can see against it.”
“It has but one fault, sir.”
“And that?”
“Simply, it is impossible.”
“Is it the presumption of a son of mine seeking an alliance with the daughter of Maurice Darcy that appears so very impossible?” said Hickman, with a hissing utterance of each word, that bespoke a fierce conflict of passion within him.
“Certainly not, sir,” replied Nalty, hastily excusing himself. “I am well aware which party contributes most to such a compact. Mr. Beecham O’Reilly might look far higher—”
“Wherein lies the impossibility you speak of, then?” rejoined O’Reilly, sternly.
“I need scarcely remind you, sir,” said Nalty, with an air of deep humility, “you that have seen so much more of life than I have, of what inveterate prejudices these old families, as they like to call themselves, are made up; that, creating a false standard of rank, they adhere to its distinctions with a tenacity far greater than what they exhibit towards the real attributes of fortune. They seem to adopt for their creed the words of the old song,—
